Chinese Operationally Responsive Space

A few days ago, I published this article regarding China’s fascination with and possible forays into the world of stealth satellites. And there’s really no reason for satellites to be stealthy other than for military reasons. If you’ll also remember, I repeated the “Want China Times” article‘s description of China’s progression in “quick replenishment” launch […]

Hostile hostels, hotels and Chinese satellites

This is a weird article, and I’m trying to figure out if part of the reason for the weirdness is if it’s a language thing. But according to the article, Chinese military analysts think China needs stealth satellites. And there’s really no good reason for stealth satellites other than military purposes. The article states the […]

Why space matters: Imaging satellite operations, part 15—decrypting the world with waves of color

Finally, we get to discuss the colors used for DigitalGlobe’s imagery satellites—or satellite, as we will be focusing (no pun intended—these satellites can’t really focus, remember) on WorldView-2. According to DigitalGlobe’s Basic Imagery literature, WorldView-2’s image sensors use eight different colors to look at the Earth: Coastal, Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Red Edge, Near-IR (InfraRed)1, […]

The mini Death Star and its song

Engadget posted a nice, short article about Telstar 1. It’s not about the song (video of it played here), which was played by the Tornados and quite popular. Both were launched in the 1960’s, the song named after the satellite. Telstar 1 looked quite a bit like a space station from a certain popular sci-fi […]

Today is the start of “World Space Week”

Yes, World Space Week! You can read more about World Space Week 2013 here. This is a United Nations (UN) declared celebration and a few events occurred on these days in history. Sputnik for one–the first man-made satellite launched into low earth orbit (just like the imagery satellites we’ve talked about in other articles) in 1957. […]