Tag: Earth observation
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Photos: WorldView 4 satellite’s road to launch
DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 commercial satellite, which will join sister-spacecraft WorldView 3 in orbit to snap the highest quality Earth imagery available on the market at 31-centimeter resolution, was built by Lockheed Martin and will be launched Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. On July 21, WorldView 4 was tucked…
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Idled by Range facility rework for months, Vandenberg ready to launch again Friday
File photo of Atlas 5 at Vandenberg. Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA Resuming space launches from the U.S. Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after a half-year infrastructure outage, an Atlas 5 rocket will boost a commercial Earth-imaging bird into orbit on Friday. Using the same United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 built and stacked…
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Israel’s new spy satellite reportedly encounters trouble after launch
An Israeli spy satellite lifted off Tuesday from a military airbase overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, but officials said the spacecraft ran into unspecified problems shortly after reaching orbit. The Ofeq 11 reconnaissance payload launched at 5:30 p.m. local time (1430 GMT; 10:30 a.m. EDT) Tuesday from the Palmachim Air Force Base, according to the Israeli…
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Chinese officials silent after Long March rocket failure
A Long March 4C rocket lifted off at 1855 GMT (2:55 p.m. EDT) Wednesday with the Gaofen 10 Earth observation satellite. Credit: Xinhua A U.S. Air Force spokesperson said Friday that the military has not detected any objects deployed in orbit by a Chinese Long March rocket launch Wednesday, but China’s official media outlets still…
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Images from European satellite reveal possible impact with space junk
The picture shows Sentinel 1A’s solar array before and after the impact of a millimeter-size particle on the second panel. The damaged area has a diameter of about 40 centimeters (16 inches), which is consistent on this structure with the impact of a fragment of less than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) in size. Credit: ESA…
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Radar remote sensing satellite launched by China
A Long March 4C rocket lifted off at 2255 GMT (6:55 p.m. EDT) Tuesday with the Gaofen 3 satellite. Credit: SASTIND A Long March 4C rocket took off from northern China on Tuesday and deployed a radar imaging satellite into orbit about 460 miles above Earth to survey the oceans, crops and resources, and natural…
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Russia’s Angara rocket wins first commercial launch contract
File photo of the first test launch of the Angara 1.2 rocket in July 2014. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense South Korea’s space agency has signed a contract to launch an Earth observation satellite into orbit in 2020 aboard Russia’s Angara rocket, giving the new booster its first commercial customer, International Launch Services announced Monday.…
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NASA shows off greatest hits from DSCOVR satellite’s year of watching Earth
The DSCOVR satellite keeps tabs on Earth from a million miles away. (Credit: NASA GSFC) It’s been a year since NASA unveiled the first image of Earth’s sunlit side captured by the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, and to celebrate the occasion, you can see an entire year’s worth of DSCOVR’s view in less than three minutes. The…
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New and improved space weather observatory goes live next month
Artist’s concept of the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Credit: NOAA NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, a $340 million mission that spent more than a decade grounded in a Maryland warehouse, will begin warning forecasters of dangerous solar storms next month, giving notice of events that could disrupt air travel, radio communications, electrical grids and satellite…
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Long March 4B lofts Earth-viewing satellites for China, Argentina
Credit: Xinhua Three Earth observation satellites for the Chinese government and a commercial Argentine startup launched Monday, entering an orbit 300 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth to begin mapping missions. A Long March 4B rocket carried the satellites into space after lifting off at 0317 GMT Monday (11:17 p.m. EDT Sunday) from the Taiyuan space base…