Weekly Spatial Resolutions

Stories I happened upon during the past week. “…the Government Accountability Office warned that costs for national security space launches are rising…” Aand, here we go again: http://spacenews.com/congressional-auditors-raise-red-flags-on-eelv-costs-national-security-launch-industrial-base/. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an annual report and noted AGAIN concerns about excessive costs surrounding the United States Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program […]

Deployment Diversity

Sometime in the past few days, new objects showed up in the satellite tracking database published by Space-Track.org. This is nothing new. Space-Track.org is supposed to do this every day. It’s their job: tracking and identifying objects orbiting the Earth, primarily for the United States Department of Defense, and as an ancillary service to the […]

Launching satellites is getting cheaper?

Last year was pretty good for small satellites weighing less than 10 kg (22 lbs). 46 percent of all satellites launched in 2014 weighed less than 10 kg. A LOT of satellites were launched in 2014. Heck, just one Russian Dnepr rocket deployed 37 satellites during one launch last year. Many were deployed from the International […]

SpaceX’s CRS7 mission explodes

The Falcon 9 a little over 2 minutes after launch. Image from NASA TV courtesy of SpaceNew.com This Sunday morning, a Falcon 9 rocket was supposed to launch and deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). And while SpaceX launched the rocket around 8:20 AM (MST) this morning, the resupply mission, CRS7, didn’t make […]

“Hold your fire.” SpaceX’s “Escape Pod”

When I first saw images of SpaceX’s test of their Dragon capsule’s pad abort test, the obvious nerd-quote going through my mind was “Hold your fire. There’s no lifeforms.” Which was true for the test. And if you don’t get the reference, please just search on the net, roll your eyes, and sigh. For the […]