NOAA’s low hanging problem — Part 1

SpacePolicyonline.com and The Weather Channel both posted stories last week about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) “urgent” need for a new weather satellite. You can read the stories from both sites here and here. According to their posts, there is a projected satellite and data gap for sun-synchronous low earth orbiting (go here […]

United Nations has a space fleet?

Did you know the United Nations (UN) has a space fleet ready for disasters? The UN doesn’t really run the constellation, but there’s a signed charter, the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which has about 23 members involved with it. Some United States organizations are members, such as DigitalGlobe (hence Tomnod), National Oceanic and […]

Satellite operations imagery supplicant requests the government to loosen regulatory leash

It’s always sad when you’re told you have to hold back on the best things you can produce. This situation has been true and probably particularly irritating for US companies like Digitalglobe, who last week, according to this article, went to the US government to ask for permission to sell higher quality images to a […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 11—Payloads and programs—the lesson that won’t get learned.

Last lesson, you learned a little bit about satellite busses and bus-driving. Almost all satellite busses are similar to each other. If you looked at a RapidEye satellite bus specifications and a Digitalglobe satellite bus, you’d likely think they might be one and the same. But the payload is different. The satellite payload (and orbit) […]

So does this mean we’re to expect Zuul and Vince Clortho?

http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/File:TempleofGozerbio.pngThat’s right, both the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper might be coming soon. It just depends on when NOAA’s GOES-R (get it?) makes its appearance. As we all know, both Zuul and Vince Clortho will show, possibly in a refrigerator, before GOES-R. This latest Satnews article gives some nice details on GOES-12’s retirement, and what typically happens to […]