Where is Space Traffic Control?

In response to this site’s previous posts, my most curious spouse asked a very common-sense question: who controls what gets launched into the Earth’s orbit? For that matter, who controls what rockets get launched? My initial response was that price had controlled the launching of satellites into orbit. There was a time, not too long ago, […]

Is Space Becoming More Accessible for Terrorists?

Part 2 In part 1 of these posts, we noted the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) basically said it was worried that terrorists will put satellites up in space within 31 years from this year. Then the MoD gave examples, which while related to space, weren’t satellites or rockets. The article these posts are based […]

Is Space Becoming More Accessible for Terrorists?

Part 1 Well, somebody has to mention it to sell the papers sometime, and this time it was the Times of India. The story is that the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is predicting bad guys are going to be able to launch their own nefarious satellites on rockets owned by private companies. Even […]

DIY Space: Two-fer–Build Your Own Satellite and Track It

These two DIY projects are straight from the DIY Space Exploration website. One project tells you how to build a picosat, the other tells you how to track it. You can read each one in whatever order you fancy, but if you intend to actually accomplish each project, then you should probably build your picosat before attempting to […]

Satellite Limitations Searching for MH370

It’s been awhile since there’s been anything said about the mission Malaysian MH370 passenger jet, That’s good, because maybe it allows investigators to investigate. It’s potentially bad if the entire investigation has been dropped (doesn’t appear to be the case though–read about that, here). It appears that Space Safety Magazine has remembered the missing airliner […]