October 24, 2024 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Pentagon’s Space Development Agency certifies 19 space companies to bid on development contracts
The list covers almost every low orbit satellite and rocket company.
- Space News op-ed calls for new effort to defend against attacks on GPS
It claims little has been done, but Jay disputes this: “We, the USA, have been researching and testing this for over fifteen years.” He notes that his own company has participated in installing systems for detecting and blocking attacks.
- Blue Origin proudly shows off first stage of first New Glenn rocket, its seven BE-4 engines finally installed
Still no word on when the launch will occur.
- An animation showing the spread of debris in geosynchronous orbit from the breakup of Intelsat 33E satellite
It appears the debris could threaten almost every satellite in geosynchronous orbit, though the odds of impact probably remain slim.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Pentagon’s Space Development Agency certifies 19 space companies to bid on development contracts
The list covers almost every low orbit satellite and rocket company.
- Space News op-ed calls for new effort to defend against attacks on GPS
It claims little has been done, but Jay disputes this: “We, the USA, have been researching and testing this for over fifteen years.” He notes that his own company has participated in installing systems for detecting and blocking attacks.
- Blue Origin proudly shows off first stage of first New Glenn rocket, its seven BE-4 engines finally installed
Still no word on when the launch will occur.
- An animation showing the spread of debris in geosynchronous orbit from the breakup of Intelsat 33E satellite
It appears the debris could threaten almost every satellite in geosynchronous orbit, though the odds of impact probably remain slim.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
GPS is a notoriously weak signal and easy to block. How you can overcome a GPS denied environment makes one wonder…. I can see detecting and blocking spoofing, but not denial (other than killing the deniers).
John,
There is GPS jamming as well, which is a denial of service attack. The Russian have this built into dedicated vehicles to work in a theater-wide combat area. There has been problems with this type of attack at airports over the last few years. You can look up articles about such events.
Yes, the GPS signal is weak. Yes, it does not take much to jam it or skew it. Ways to combat this is to look at other GPS-like sources, combine them, or make algorithms to detect skewing(spoofing) and go into a stand-alone mode(s).
GPS in not only used for navigation, but as a time reference as well- where people can get their reference for PTP, IRIG-B, and God forbid NTP. Many aspects of our society rely on precise time in order to operate.
The debris tweet (X?) tells us quite a bit. That some debris was traveling at more than 500 meters per second (1/2 kilometer per second) relative speed suggests something that we would call an explosion. I don’t think that a micrometeor would cause very many pieces large enough to track by radar to travel that fast. We also saw that several pieces went into lower elliptical orbits and higher elliptical orbits, spreading them around the Earth very quickly, in three orbits or so. Such large pieces traveling that fast are a serious hazard for the remaining geostationary satellites.
These pieces would be good targets for early debris-removal tugs.