By European Space Agency, Published by Phys.org, 24 November 2023 Down on the ground, death equals stillness—but not in space. Abandoned satellites are prone to tumble in unpredictable ways, and an ESA project with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern sought to better understand this behavior. ESA's Clean
Artist's illustration of a wooden square satellite. (Image credit: Kyoto University) By Ben Turner, Published by Space.com, 16 November 2023 The magnolia wood LignoSat is an attempt to make space junk biodegradable. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are planning to launch the world's first wooden satellite into space
Animation shows human-made space objects cataloged by the U.S. Space Force. The red objects are in near-Earth orbits. The green objects are in the cislunar region. Credit: Purdue University/Carolin Frueh By Sandra Erwin, Published by SpaceNews, 12 November 2023 The $1.2 million contract is to develop a software tool to
By Elizabeth Howell, Published by Space.com, 10 November 2023 The debris avoidance maneuver took place on Nov. 10. Update for Nov. 13: In an email to Space.com, a representative from NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate confirmed the debris avoidance maneuver that took place on Nov. 10. "On Nov. 10, the International
By Ewan Wright and Andrew FallePublished by The Conversation, 7 November 2023 In September 2021, Rwanda announced that it was planning to launch over 300,000 satellites. Three months later, a Canadian company, having previously launched two dozen CubeSats, said it would launch an additional 100,000. Then, a French company did likewise. And SpaceX, which
By Andrew Falle, Ewan Wright, Published by The Conversation, 7 November 2023 As the number of satellites in orbit increase, so will the possibilities of space debris. There are currently 8,000 satellites in orbit, but hundreds of thousands more are being proposed. In September 2021, Rwanda announced that it was planning
By Tereza Pultarova, Published by Space.com, 19 October 2023 Chemicals created by fiery satellite re-entries could affect Earth's climate. Scientists have long thought that the burning up of space junk in Earth's atmosphere creates air pollution that can affect the planet's climate. Now, for the first time, they've managed to
By Robert Cyran, Published by Reuters, 16 October 2023 NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O) Project Kuiper is a misguided technological marvel. The plan to build a sky-spanning network beaming down internet service from space, dreamed up when founder Jeff Bezos still ran the company, took a step forward with the launch of
