News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
SpaceX will launch 50 satellites and land the returning booster today (Feb. 25), and you can watch the action live. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 50 Starlink internet spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California today at 12:12 p.m. EST (1712 GMT; 9:12 a.m. local California time). You … Read more
SpaceX will launch more than four dozen satellites and land the returning rocket on Monday (Feb. 21), and you can watch the action live. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 49 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Sunday at 9:44 a.m. EST (1444 … Read more
By Leah Crane Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis Polaris Program SpaceX has announced a new project aiming to take its Dragon spacecraft higher than ever before. The first flight of this programme, called Polaris Dawn, is scheduled for the end of 2022. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who sponsored and flew … Read more
NASA raised concerns about SpaceX’s new Starlink satellites, including an increase of the risk of collision in orbit, in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The five-page letter was submitted to the FCC Tuesday (Feb. 8) and was first reported in SpaceNews. The letter, which includes a separate one-page letter from the National Science Foundation, … Read more
A powerful geomagnetic storm has doomed 40 Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX last week, the company has announced. Elon Musk‘s company launched a Falcon 9 rocket bearing the 49 satellites from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday (Feb. 3), but a geomagnetic storm that struck a day later sent the satellites plummeting back toward Earth, … Read more
Elon Musk’s SpaceX will lose 40 Starlink satellites to a geomagnetic storm as solar activity ramps up. But does this spell disaster for the future of satellites in space? On Tuesday (Feb. 8), SpaceX revealed that likely 40 of its 49 newest Starlink satellites that launched last Thursday (Feb. 3) were affected by a geomagnetic … Read more
A dramatic video serves as a memorial to a star-crossed satellite that lived fast and died very young. SpaceX launched 49 satellites to low Earth orbit on Feb. 3 to further beef up the company’s huge and growing Starlink internet megaconstellation. But most of those newly lofted spacecraft will never beam any broadband signals down, … Read more
SpaceX is in the process of losing up to 40 brand-new Starlink internet satellites due to a geomagnetic storm that struck just a day after the fleet’s launch last week. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 49 Starlink satellites from Florida on Thursday (Feb. 3) from NASA’s historic Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center … Read more
The number of active satellites in the night sky has more than doubled since 2019 – from around 2,200 to 5,000. That is mostly due to Starlink, a SpaceX project aimed at providing internet anywhere in the world through ‘mega-constellations’ of satellites. Since it began, Starlink has launched over 2,000 satellites. Unfortunately, the thousands of … Read more
SpaceX just added another 49 satellites to its growing Starlink internet megaconstellation. A Falcon 9 rocket launched 49 new Starlink satellites to orbit today (Feb. 3), lifting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on the east coast of Florida at 1:13 p.m. EST (1813 GMT). About nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 rocket’s … Read more