Imagine a shuttle launches, and…as has been the case…needs to inspect itself in flight for damage. But, instead of using a camera mounted to the vehicle’s robotic arm, it uses a different tool.
A tiny, maneuverable satellite carrying a camera—a nanosatellite. It’s no bigger than a beachball and weights less than 20 pounds.
With systems now being [...]

Just a few months after North Korea failed to launch a satellite, South Korea yesterday failed to launch a satellite.

The launch, from Naro Space Center, appeared to go well. But when the craft reached space, one of the two fairings covering the satellite failed to drop off. With the extra weight, the satellite probably fell [...]

Following a North Korean “launch” of what appears to be an imaginary satellite earlier this year, South Korea planned to launch an actual satellite next week. But, for now, those plans have been delayed due to technical problems.
The rocket, whenever it’s launched, will use the 108 foot tall booster called the Korea Space Launch Vehicle [...]

Will this happen? I don’t know.
But there’s a plan for an agreement between Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Solaren Corp. of Southern California, a somewhat mysterious startup.
PG&E is asking the state of California for permission to sign an agreement with Soaren to purchase up to 200 megawatts of power—which Solaren plans to beam to [...]

North Korea claimed a successful satellite launch today…but nobody can find it.
Launch, staging…and no satellite
Using their long-range Taepodong-2 missile, they say they put a communications satellite into orbit. But reports say that, although the missile had some success—the missile, for example, managed to get multiple stages to work—there seems to be no satellite in orbit.
The [...]

Should American satellites be used to spy on people inside the U.S.?
That was the plan for the current National Applications Office (NAO) program, under the jurisdiction of the Office of Homeland Security. New Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano is reviewing the program.
The Congress filed an injunction in October 2007, to prevent the NAO program [...]

Gordon Cooper’s Faith 7 flight in 1963 marked the first time an American astronaut spent a day in space. But Gordo enjoyed a second, lesser-known accomplishment during that mission: He launched a satellite, the first ever launched from a manned spacecraft.
The satellite was very tiny—an globe only 6 inches in diameter. The micro-satellite was equipped [...]

As noted yesterday, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a satellite designed to monitor the earth’s CO2 levels, failed to reach orbit.
Instead, the satellite (or its charred remains) ended up in the ocean, somewhere near Antarctica. The loss of the $278 million satellite remind us just how hard space exploration is—sometimes things just go wrong.
It reminds [...]

Canada seems to make very good robot arms. The robotic arms used by the space shuttles were made by Spar Aerospace, and have been in service since the second shuttle flight, in 1981.
The Canadian company, Spar, was later acquired by a company in British Columbia, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA)
Testing instead of sleeping
Back during that [...]

Kaguya, the Japanese lunar probe (known in English as “Selene”) took some incredible photos. They’re high resolution images of a solar eclipse.
But it’s not the moon that’s blocking out the view of the sun; it’s US…the Earth!
Three satellites, one mission
Selene consists of a parent satellite and two smallar probes that are in polar orbits around [...]