Satellites | Universe Today

UPDATE: Information about both SMOS and the Proba-2 satelite are on ESA Television. The program loop is embedded at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

Last night at 2:50 am Central European Time, two European Space Agency (ESA) satellites were successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia. The Rockot launch vehicle was carrying both the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite, and the Proba-2 satellite. SMOS will monitor the moisture exchange of the Earth between the ocean, air and land as well as the salinity of the oceans and the moisture of the soil in an effort to better understand how these factors influence the climate of our planet. Proba-2 will test out various instruments, including a small wide angle optical camera, and instruments for monitoring the plasma environment in orbit and the Sun's corona. Read more…

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Data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite has been used to create a 3-D map of rainfall over the Phillipines from September 21-28, 2008. Armed with both a passive microwave sensor and a space-borne precipitation radar, TRMM has been measuring the amount of rainfall created by the tropical cyclone, Typhoon Ketsana (known in the Phillippines as "Ondoy"). A record 13.43 inches of rain fell in Manila in six hours between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time, which is equivalent to about a month's worth of rain for the area. In just 24 hours, Ketsana dropped 17.9 inches (455 mm) of rain in Manila in just 24 hours on Saturday, September 26.
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Is Earth's gravity field as intriguing and misshapen as this image above? We're about to find out. The sexy looking Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer or GOCE satellite has completed its calibration and is now in its science orbit to map the tiny variations of Earth's gravity in unprecedented detail. And it turns out the sun's current period of low solar activity has a side benefit for the GOCE mission. Less solar activity means a calmer environment for GOCE in its low Earth orbit, so its current orbit of 255 km is a few kilometers lower than engineers had originally planned. This is good news – the gravity measurements being made at the moment will be even more accurate.
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Normally, the Swift satellite is searching for distant cosmic explosions. But recently it took some time to take a long look (total exposure time: 24 hours) with its ultraviolet eyes at the Andromeda galaxy, a.k.a. M31. The result is this gorgeous image. "Swift reveals about 20,000 ultraviolet sources in M31, especially hot, young stars and dense star clusters," said Stefan Immler, a research scientist on the Swift team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters. That will let us study M31's star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible."

Compare this image to an optical version taken by a ground-based telescope:
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What a gorgeous shot of our blue planet! This Envisat satellite image taken on August 19, 2009 captures a plankton bloom larger than the country of Greece stretching across the Barents Sea off the tip of northern Europe. The land visible across the bottom of the image belongs to Norway (left) and Russia’s Murmansk Oblast.
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South Korea successfully launched its first rocket on Tuesday, but the satellite payload failed to reach its designated orbit, officials said. The rocket, a two-stage rocket, called the Naro lifted off on schedule at 5:00 pm local time, (0800 GMT). The first stage separated successfully less than five minutes after lift-off and the South Korean-built 100-kilogram (220-pound) scientific research satellite was placed into Earth orbit. But science and technology minister Ahn Byong-Man said it was not following the designated orbit, hampering communications with mission control. "All aspects of the launch were normal, but the satellite exceeded its planned orbit and reached an altitude of 360 kilometres (225 miles)," Ahn said.
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Want to launch something into space? You can now do just that for only $8,000 USD. The rocket company Interorbital Services (IOS) is offering their "TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit" that can carry 0.75-kg into orbit. The price includes a launch into low Earth orbit on an IOS NEPTUNE 30 launch vehicle to 310 kilometers (192 miles) above the Earth. TubeSats are designed to be orbit-friendly, and not contribute to orbital debris by being in a self-decaying orbit. Launches are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2010.
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The Grand Canyon is an awesome sight on Earth — one of the seven natural wonders of the world – and it looks breathtaking from space, too. This image was taken by the Envisat satellite, showing canyon walls, rock structures, old lava flows, buttes, ravines, stair-step topography in hues of pink, violet and gray.
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Topographic maps are some of the most used and valuable maps for both government and the general public. Now, NASA and Japan have released a new digital topographic map of Earth Monday that covers more of our planet than ever before and was created from nearly 1.3 million individual stereo-pair images collected by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, on board NASA's Terra spacecraft. It is available online to users everywhere at no cost.
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NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has made the first observations of fast hydrogen atoms coming from the moon, following decades of speculation and searching for their existence.   Launched last October, the IBEX has a mission to image and map the dynamic interactions caused by the hot solar wind slamming into the cold expanse of space.  But as the IBEX team commissioned the spacecraft, they discovered the stream of neutral hydrogen atoms which are caused by the solar wind scattering off the moon's surface.

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With the help of an orbiting satellite, researchers have conducted the first global analysis of the health and productivity of ocean plants. Using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, scientists have for the first time measured remotely the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by ocean phytoplankton and assess how efficiently the microscopic plants are turning sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. Now that they have their first data, this method should allow scientists to effectively keep an eye on the health of our oceans. So what did they find out so far?
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NASA tracked a piece of orbital debris that came fairly close to space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope Wednesday evening, but decided no evasive maneuver was required. A 4 inch (10 cm) chunk of a Chinese satellite that was destroyed in a 2007 anti-satellite test came within 1.7 miles (2.8 km) ahead and 150 meters below Atlantis at its closest approach. These potential orbital impacts seem to be occurring routinely for the ISS, and previous shuttle missions have been forced to maneuver out of the way to avoid collisions. The satellite collision in February destroyed a functional satellite, and seemingly, it will be only a matter of time until a serious impact could endanger human lives in orbit. Last week, experts gathered at the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Space Debris, at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and concluded that action must be taken now to reduce the threat to both human spaceflight and satellites from destructive space debris.
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If you think tornadoes on Earth are scary, newly found "space tornadoes" sound downright horrifying. But they are likely the power source behind the beautiful Northern and Southern Lights. A new finding by a cluster of five space probes – the THEMIS, or Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms show that electrical funnels which span a volume as large as Earth produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes. THEMIS recorded the extent and power of these electrical funnels as the probes passed through them during their orbit of Earth. Ground measurements showed that the space tornadoes channel the electrical current into the ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras on Earth.
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One of the largest utility companies in the US has decided to look towards space to find more power. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) in California announced a proposed agreement with startup company Solaren Corporation to provide 200 mega watts of space based solar power (SBSP) starting in 2016. PG&E is now seeking approval from California state regulators for permission to sign this agreement. While PG&E is not making any financial investment at this time, the announcement shows that SBSP is being taken seriously as a viable energy source. PG&E and the two other California utilities are required by the state to source 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010 and 30 percent by 2017. None are producing the required amount so far.
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How did our Moon form? The leading hypothesis, the Giant Impact Theory, proposes that in the formative years of the Solar System, a Mars-sized protoplanet crashed into Earth. Debris from the collision, a mixture of material from both bodies, spun out into Earth orbit and coalesced into the Moon. Soon, this theory will be tested, perhaps answering the question of how our Moon was born. Two identical NASA spacecraft are preparing to enter areas in space known as the Lagrangian points where remains of this mystery protoplanet may be hiding. The spacecraft duo, called Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or Stereo, will pass by the L4 and L5 points where the gravity of the sun and Earth combine to form gravitational wells where asteroids and space dust tend to gather.
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