Dextre: When Humans Just Won’t Do

It might come as a surprise to some people that Canada has a space agency–the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Some Americans might view our northern neighbor’s agency as a NASA-Lite, but that would be very untrue. It might be even more surprising for people to know the CSA is very active and has provided some critical […]

DIY Space: More NASA Space Kits

NASA and the website Littlebits.cc are working together to get an actual working “space kit” out to the public. The kit, which costs $189, can be used to build all sorts of projects (at least 10, according to the website). Do you want to build an International Space Station replica? This kit will help you do […]

Learn Why Space Matters–Hands-On: DIY Space

One of my favorite magazines is MAKE. One of my favorite events is Maker Faire (there’s a Denver Mini Maker Faire starting up this year on May 3 and 4–the big one is in San Mateo). And of course, I enjoy writing about space. Well, MAKE is starting off next week with DIY Space. MAKE […]

Out of Many, One (Synthetic Image, that is)

This Defense Update post sounds like something I may have talked about before–using a flock of small maneuvering satellites, with each satellite within the flock taking an image and using each image to build a big, high resolution image–one a bigger, more expensive satellite might get with a big imagery sensor. NASA’s contractor, Aurora Flight […]

Fill it up, RROxITT! And check the solar panels, too.

For a very long time, satellites orbiting the Earth have had a very finite lifetime. Some satellites have lasted over ten years, and aside from anomalies and failing components, a satellite’s fuel tank has been key to how long a satellite can function. But that might change soon for geosynchronous (GEO) satellites, thanks to RROxITT (Remote Robotic […]