Iranians Stop Space Monkeying Around–This Time

According to this Strategypage.com post, Iran’s space program is growing because of the restrictions placed on what it can buy from other countries. Example: Iran has just announced they’ve built their own satellites, which is interesting, but shouldn’t be surprising. They do have a very educated population, are industrialized, and have shown determination to stay […]

Pictures of a Decaying Satellite

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) -run Landsat 8 Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) imagery satellite’s primary job is to take pictures of the Earth. But occasionally, like teenagers with new camera phones, Landsat 8 feels compelled to take pictures of other satellites. Really—you can see the evidence here […]

Three new ways to get imagery

The Atlantic posted an excellent article on 7 Jan about the three newer members to the satellite imagery community: Skybox, Urthecast, and Planet Labs. All are attempting to do very similar things, but they seem to be going about their attempts differently. Urthecast is using the International Space Station as its “camera tripod” for its […]

…and this was from a LEO satellite…

So this was just put out there: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/hubble-telescope-finds-source-cosmic-stream-near-milky-way-6C10911426 And yup, you read that right: the Hubble is a low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite, just like the others that Digitalglobe and RapidEye use–except the payload, the camera and telescope, points outwards. Don’t get me wrong–if the Hubble hadn’t been that low to the Earth, the space […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, Part 5

One is a lonely number. It takes a while for one low earth orbiting (LEO) satellite’s payload (the camera) to see the entire Earth’s surface. If you want to get pictures more quickly, say the same day something like a hurricane or a forest fire is happening, you want a CONSTELLATION of satellites orbiting the […]