Duncan Steel • Nov 20, 2019 •
Satellites pass over NZ all the time (literally). Here I focus on the 187 Planet Labs ‘Dove’ Earth-imaging satellites, and I show that one can determine in advance where they will be, enabling scientists on the ground to correlate their environmental and other data collection with opportunities to get imaging from space. That is, we can get ‘space-truth’ (rather than … Read More
Duncan Steel • Oct 15, 2019 •
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in many ways. Yesterday I was really pleased to give a … Read More
Duncan Steel • Aug 31, 2019 •
The numerous fires now burning in Brazil have been much-discussed of late, with world leaders complaining that the nation’s authorities allowing such clearing of land is highly detrimental to international efforts to limit the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with the potential to exacerbate anthropogenic global warming/climate change. In this post I illustrate how such fires may … Read More
Duncan Steel • Jul 02, 2019 •
On Saturday June 29th Rocket Lab launched another cluster of seven satellites into low-Earth orbit from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand’s North Island. In this blog post I illustrate the orbital paths of the ten resultant tracked items now in orbit. In a blog post last week (June 27th) I showed the orbits of the various satellites launched … Read More
Duncan Steel • Jun 27, 2019 •
With so many thousand satellites now in orbit, and tens of thousands of other tracked items, one might think that it is difficult keeping tabs on them, simply as an interested person. In fact it is quite straightforward, with long lists of orbital elements freely available for all except the few satellites deemed by the US Government to require secrecy, … Read More
Duncan Steel • May 16, 2019 •
The annual beanfeast for the US satellite industry — featuring major participation from European nations and companies in particular — is the SATELLITE congress held at the Washington Convention Center, a few blocks from the White House. It was an amazing event to attend, compared to the sort of low-key conferences we have in New Zealand. Now I’m back in … Read More
Duncan Steel • May 02, 2019 •
Astronauts, astronomers, planetary scientists, space researchers and aerospace engineers are meeting near Washington DC to discuss how we might deal with any asteroid found to be heading for a cataclysmic collision with Earth, perhaps causing a global catastrophe. That is, if it was actually found before it caught us unawares. As I type this I am sat in a large, … Read More
Duncan Steel • Apr 02, 2019 •
Last Friday Rocket Lab successfully launched another satellite from the Mahia Peninsula. In this post I describe the satellite’s orbital path, and how it will slowly vary in time over the next week. Rocket Lab successfully launched another satellite into orbit from the Mahia Peninsula soon after midday last Friday (March 29th), a wonderful achievement. Well done to … Read More
Duncan Steel • Mar 31, 2019 •
An open competition soon to start will provide a wonderful opportunity for smart people of any age in New Zealand to take on the challenge of how we might assess water and soil pollution using satellite and drone data. What they might choose to do in attacking such environmental problems is limited only by their imaginations, and technical capabilities. All … Read More
Duncan Steel • Mar 04, 2019 •
As I write, the Dragon capsule – a spacecraft intended to loft US astronauts into orbit – has been docked with the Space Station for almost 18 hours on its initial test flight. It happens that you will be able to see the station plus capsule passing over New Zealand each evening for the next week or so, before the … Read More