US leads world in 2023 launches, sats on orbit: study

By Theresa Hitchens, Published by Breaking Defense, 4 January 2024 SpaceX alone was responsible for 98 of the 109 launch attempts made by the US in 2023, and 1,937 of the 2,234 US satellites successfully orbited. WASHINGTON — The United States led the world, far surpassing both China and Russia,

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New report urges US to look beyond cheap low-earth satellites for missile warning

From the CSIS paper "Getting on Track Space and Airborne Sensors for Hypersonic Missile Defense" CSIS By Patrick Tucker, Published by Defense One, 18 December 2023 Tracking hypersonic missiles across oceans is like trying to “find a cup of tea that you’ve dropped into a swimming pool.” Lots of cheap satellites

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Was going to space a good idea?

By Alice Gorman, Published by The Conversation, 4 December 2023 In 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopaedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: “Has man’s conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?” The respondents were philosopher Hannah Arendt,

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NASA and Japan to launch world’s 1st wooden satellite as soon as 2024. Why?

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

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