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Category: satellites – Page 104

WASHINGTON — The Tyvak-0130 rideshare payload that flew to orbit May 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 carries a miniature space telescope for possible commercial use.

The technology was developed by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under a four-year agreement to advance compact telescopes for commercial applications, Tyvak’s CEO Christian “Boris” Becker said in an interview with SpaceNews.

Becker, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, was recently named chief executive of Tyvak, a satellite manufacturer in Irvine, California, owned by Terran Orbital.

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Liftoff is at 1:42 p.m. EDT (1742 GMT).

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch an Atlas V rocket into space today (May 17), and you can watch the action live online.

The two-stage rocket will blast off from Space Launch Complex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:42 p.m. EDT (1742 GMT), carrying with it a missile-warning satellite for the U.S. Space Force. The launch was initially aimed to launch 7 minutes earlier, but ULA pushed it back “to avoid launching too close to object already in space,” company officials said in an update on Twitter.

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A Falcon 9 rocket and 60 more Starlink internet satellites set for launch early Sunday at Cape Canaveral will mark the first time SpaceX has flown a first stage 10 times, reaching a milestone that the company once said could be a limit for reusing boosters. Now SpaceX plans to keep flying reused rockets on Starlink missions until one fails.

The mission Sunday is set for liftoff at 2:42 a.m. EDT (0642 GMT) from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Nine kerosene-burning Merlin 1D engines will power the Falcon 9 rocket northeast from Florida’s Space Coast, following a trail blazed by 26 previous dedicated Starlink missions.

There is an 80 percent chance of good weather for launch at Cape Canaveral, according to the 45th Weather Squadron at Patrick Space Force Base. There is also a good chance of favorable upper level winds and acceptable conditions in the Falcon 9 booster’s downrange recovery area in the Atlantic Ocean.

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Virgin Orbit, the sister company of Virgin Galactic, is gearing up for its next space launch in June when it will put six satellites in orbit.

The mission, named “Tubular Bells, Part One” after the first album Virgin Records released in 1973, will launch satellites for the U.S. Department of Defense, Poland’s SatRevolution and the Royal Netherlands Air Force.

A modified Boeing 747–400 jet will carry the LauncherOne rocket to high altitude, then release the 70-foot, 57000-pound rocket into the air.

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DARPA awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 million contract to provide positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) payloads for the Blackjack program.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 million contract to provide positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) payloads for the Blackjack program.

Blackjack is a DARPA project to demonstrate the military utility of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide communications, missile warning and PNT. Northrop Grumman’s contract was awarded April 28, according to sam.gov.

The company will supply two payloads that broadcast a new signal that is not dependent on the Global Positioning System.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Kleos Space is conducting a six-month test of technology for in-space manufacturing of large 3D carbon fiber structures that could be used to construct solar arrays, star shades and interferometry antennas.

The company with operations in Luxembourg, the United States and United Kingdom is best known for radio frequency reconnaissance satellites. In the background, however, Kleos has been designing and developing in-space manufacturing technology called Futrism to robotically produce a carbon-fiber I-beam with embedded fiber-optic cables that is more than 100 meters long.

“It’s something that we have linked to our roadmap for RF, because it’s something that could deploy very large antennas for RF reconnaissance,” Kleos CEO Andy Bowyer told SpaceNews. “However, it’s useful for a whole range of other applications as well that we are very keen to work with partners on. We firmly believe that manufacturing in space is the future.”

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It can track objects the size of a golf ball traveling at up 30000 kilometers per hour in LEO.

There’s a new giant space radar in Costa Rica that can track orbital debris as small as two centimeters. It was built by LeoLabs, a company that provides commercial radar tracking services for objects in Low Earth Orbit, which has declared the site fully operational less than a year after breaking ground. LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley said it’s the “most advanced commercial space radar of its kind” — one that’s capable of tracking objects the size of a golf ball traveling at up 30000 kilometers per hour.

The radar can keep an eye on both active satellites and space junk, which make up the vast majority of man-made objects found in LEO. They’re also the risks LeoLabs’ customers — made up of satellite operators, defense, space and regulatory agencies, insurance and scientific institutions — want to keep tabs on.

Space junk has increasingly occupied the Earth’s orbit over the past few decades, and it’s only bound to become a bigger issue in the coming years as private companies deploy more and more massive satellite constellations. Debris flying around in space is a huge threat to the ISS and future manned missions, giving rise to the need for a company like LeoLabs. Ed Lu, the company’s co-founder, explains that “[t]he number one danger to astronauts aboard the International Space Station has been and is today the risk of orbital debris that is too small to be tracked by the US Department of Defense going through the hull.”

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DARPA announced it has increased Lockheed Martin’s contract for satellite integration work for the Blackjack program by $27.3 million.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency increased Lockheed Martin’s contract for satellite integration work for the Blackjack program by $27.3 million, the agency announced April 22.

DARPA a year ago selected Lockheed Martin as the satellite integrator for Blackjack, a project to demonstrate a network of small satellites in low Earth orbit for military communications, missile warning and navigation.

The company had previously received a $13.1 million contract for Blackjack satellite integration work. The $27.3 million modification for Phase 2 of the program brings the total value of the contract to $40.4 million.

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