Lifeboat Foundation

The new Starlink satellites are a precursor for larger models that will eventually launch aboard Starship.

SpaceX lifted the first batch of its new Starlink “V2 mini” satellites to orbit on Monday, February 27. The private space firm launched 21 of the new generation satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket that also came down to perform the 100th successful booster landing in a row for the company.

The Starlink mission took to the skies at 6:13 pm EST (2313 GMT) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch was delayed roughly five hours before liftoff due to “a space weather concern,” SpaceX explained on Twitter.

Continue reading “SpaceX launches batch of 21 new ‘V2 mini’ Starlink satellites to orbit” »

However, these ones are different to the several thousand Starlink satellites that are already circling Earth.

That’s because they sport a more modern and powerful design that gives them four times the capacity for serving customers compared to the original design, SpaceX said. So, yes, it means faster internet speeds for customers.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk confirmed the successful deployment of the new satellites in a tweet.

Yesterday was an example of how things are speeding up at SpaceX. First, they had a launch scrubbed due to problems with its lighter fluid then they had a launch scrubbed due to weather. Then they had a launch delayed due to space weather. Finally, the delayed launch did get off the ground. The point being that SpaceX is so busy these days that even with two scrubs and one delay, they still launched to orbit!

This launch featured the first Starlink 2.0 satellites. Besides a 4 times increase in capacity compared to version 1.5 satellites, they also include brand new ion engines which are the first ion engines to use argon that have ever been produced.

Finally, this launch ended in the 100th successful landing in a row for SpaceX. Almost no other space company has completed 100 successful launches, forget about landings! (Currently everyone else is crashing and burning all their orbital rockets.)

Continue reading “SpaceX: Our Second-Gen Starlink Satellites Have 4 Times More Capacity” »

The RNA molecule is commonly recognized as messenger between DNA and protein, but it can also be folded into intricate molecular machines. An example of a naturally occurring RNA machine is the ribosome, that functions as a protein factory in all cells.

Inspired by natural RNA machines, researchers at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) have developed a method called “RNA origami,” which makes it possible to design artificial RNA nanostructures that fold from a single stand of RNA. The method is inspired by the Japanese paper folding art, origami, where a single piece of paper can be folded into a given shape, such as a paper bird.

The research paper in Nature Nanotechnology describes how the RNA origami technique was used to design RNA nanostructures, that were characterized by cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) at the Danish National cryo-EM Facility EMBION. Cryo-EM is a method for determining the 3D structure of biomolecules, which works by freezing the sample so quickly that water does not have time to form ice crystals, which means that frozen biomolecules can be observed more clearly with the electron microscope.

Two major uncertainties in the behavior of Antarctic ice are reduced.

The Antarctic Peninsula, the northern and warmest region of Antarctica, is the largest frozen water reservoir on Earth. Around its coastlines, it is estimated that glaciers—massive blocks of moving ice—travel at an average speed of about one kilometer every year.

Additionally, glacier meltwater is estimated to have boosted global sea levels by 7.6 mm between 1992 and 2017.

Continue reading “Antarctic Peninsula: Satellites capture accelerating glacier movements” »

The buzz in the wireless industry is all about space, or what is referred to as non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). The wireless 3GPP Release 17 specification includes two new standards for satellite communications from smartphones, mobile electronics, and IoT devices directly to satellites. While satellites have always been part of the wireless communications infrastructure, they have traditionally provided backhaul network communications, not direct communications to mobile devices other than clunky satellite phones and emergency equipment. Direct satellite communications with individual mobile devices will help overcome gaps in terrestrial cellular networks, providing a truly global infrastructure that can be leveraged by a variety of industries, and bridge the digital divide by bringing wireless communications to rural areas that often lack the infrastructure even with the rollout of 5G cellular networks.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project or 3GPP is a global standards body consisting of a wide variety of wireless ecosystem members, such as intellectual property (IP) providers, semiconductor companies, networking companies, device OEMs, and wireless operators. Since 1998 and 2G cellular technology, members of the 3GPP have worked together to develop standards for new wireless technologies continuously. While the industry is now well past 3G and new generations of cellular technology are still introduced approximately every 10 years, new releases of the 3GPP standards are released approximately every two years within a generation in an on-going effort to increase the efficient use of a limited natural resource – radio spectrum. The standards also encourage the freeing up of additional spectrum, the development of new radio access networks (RANs), new encryption technology, higher network performance, aggregation of spectrum from different carriers and wireless technologies, support for additional use cases, and new network configurations. In other words, the 3GPP group is tasked with improving wireless technology with each generation and providing a global network that can be accessed from anywhere and by any device. With the inclusion of satellite networks, or non-terrestrial networks (NTNs), a global network will finally be possible.

The latest 3GPP standard that was finalized in 2023 is Release 17, the 3^rd Release within the 5G cellular generation. Among other enhancements and additions, Release 17 includes two new standards for satellite networks, IoT-NTN and New Radio NTN or NR-NTN. The IoT-NTN standard defines narrow band using a 200KHz channel for two-way messaging and other low-bandwidth consumer and embedded/IoT applications, such as location tracking, asset tracking, and sensor monitoring. The data rates for IoT-NTN are similar to the data rates that were experienced in 2G. It will provide basic data connectivity.

The plan is to dispatch a swarm of satellites in the lower Earth orbit to stop Elon Musk from monopolizing the low-Earth orbit space, claims a report.

China allegedly plans to deploy a swarm of satellites in low Earth orbit to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink and offer internet services, an alternative to people worldwide.

The plan to dispatch almost 13,000 satellites to throttle Starlink exposure comes under the mysterious project, code name “GW,” according to People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) space engineering researchers.

Earlier today, Samsung announced its own solution for satellite communication on smartphones. The company unveiled the 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) modem so phones can communicate with satellites in locations where there is no cellular network connectivity.

The company said that it aims to integrate this tech into its own Exynos chip, which is used in a lot of Samsung smartphones — but not the current flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy S23. The Korean tech giant describes this tech as using “satellites and other non-terrestrial vehicles” to provide connectivity in remote areas.

The move follows Apple, which launched satellite connectivity with iPhone 14 and 14 Pro for off-grid connectivity. The company first made this tech available in the U.S. and Canada, later expanding it to France, Germany, Ireland and the U.K. Apple relies on Globalstar’s satellite network.

The space around our planet is getting cluttered. Thousands of satellites and millions of out-of-control fragments of space debris hurtle high above our heads, threatening to collide. Here are the objects that experts fear the most.

In just the past month, the goings-on in near-Earth space have twice made headlines and prompted experts to call for action. On Jan. 27, space debris researchers looked on in horror as two huge pieces of space junk ⁠— a decades-old upper stage of a Russian rocket and a long-defunct Russian satellite — came within 20 feet (6 meters) or so of each other. The incident, described as a close call “worst case scenario,” could have spawned thousands of dangerous debris fragments that would have stayed in orbit for centuries. Then, a report released on Feb. 6 revealed that in early January a mysterious Russian satellite broke apart into 85 fragments large enough to be tracked from Earth.