The 40 Year Anniversary of the NASA Disco Ball

40 years ago, NASA put a giant disco ball in space. This disco ball has been revolving around the Earth for forty years and will continue to hang there for millions more. This NASA satellite was named LAGEOS and has transformed the ways that scientists explored and gathered data about Earth using relatively simple technology. According to Space.com, The 900-pound (408-kg) satellite has no onboard sensors, electronics or moving parts; it's simply a brass core surrounded by an aluminum shell that's covered in 426 retroreflectors. 

An important part of this laser satellite is the retroreflectors. Space.com further notes that the  retroreflectors, which reflect light with minimal scattering, made LAGEOS the first NASA orbiter to use a technique called laser ranging to take measurements. By sending light to LAGEOS and measuring how much time it took that light to bounce off the reflectors and make it back to Earth, NASA scientists could make measurements to millimeter-level precision of how far away LAGEOS was from the ground. Those measurements over time revealed how the ground stations were moving relative to Earth's center of mass. 

Previous satellites could only measure about 3 miles but this satellite could measure over 3,000 miles above the Earth within half an inch. Over the past 40 years, NASA has used LAGEOS to measure the movement of Earth's tectonic plates, detect irregularities in the rotation of the planet, weigh the Earth and track small shifts in its center of mass via tiny changes in the satellite's orbit and distance from Earth. 

NASA small satellite duo deploys from space station into Earth

After spending five months aboard the international space station, NASA's two Node satellites were deployed on May 16th, 2016 from NanoRacks platform and into low-Earth orbit in order to begin an  anticipated technology demonstration. The small satellites will orbit 250 miles above Earth and will demonstrate the ability to receive and distribute commands in space from the ground while exchanging scientific data from their onboard radiation instruments. This feat will be a first for small satellites to achieve.

According to Andrew Petro, program executive for the Small Spacecraft Technology Program (SSTP) in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, ""The purpose of the Nodes demonstration is to test out the potential for using a network of small, low-cost satellites to perform complex science missions. If we can demonstrate that any single satellite can 'talk' to the ground on behalf of a whole network of satellites, that's a great tool for creating new, more affordable space mission concepts."

This is an important feat as it will show the small satellites can be controlled without communicating to each other directly in a network. This form of inner-satellite communications will enable future constellation command and control capabilities that can be operated. This could open up new missions and improve the speed of research for new discovery. Such applications that could be added include multi-satellite science missions, the formation of synthetic aperture radars for Earth-sensing systems, as well as large aperture observatories for next-generation telescopes. They also can serve to collect science measurements distributed over space and time to study the Earth, the Earth's magnetosphere, gravity field, and Earth-Sun interactions.

For more information about this article you can visit Phys.org.

Small Satellites aim to reveal details about Jupiter's icy moon.

Small satellites could reveal big details about Jupiter's icy moon. The mission known as Europa is a proposal designed to map the entire world and possibly find signs of life too. The mission is designed to find amino acids in order to determine if there is a possibility of life. With CubeSats, people can do these assignments at a lower cost and higher efficiency. 

According to Astronomy.com, while NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have been busy putting together flagship missions to the Europa system, a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts proposal seeks a way to do a cheap mission with the potential to map ice thickness and even search for the basic components of life. 

The proposal, a collaboration between Draper Laboratories and Cornell University, would utilize a combination of small satellites known as CubeSats and even smaller microprobes called ChipSats to explore Europa on the cheap. A probe of about 3 to 12 individual CubeSat units that are stacked together would orbit the icy moon of jupiter and create an effective map of the icy terrain of Europa,  measuring ice thickness and finding areas of low ice density to potentially access the ocean below. 

The simple instrumentation would allow for it to fly miles over the surface of the world and collect data in order to detect amino acids. They are looking for the amino acids in order to effectively find the chirality or the strong handedness of the surface in order to detect if these acids are present. 

UGA to Launch Small Satellites in 2018

The funding is set and UGA's new small satellite lab is set for lift off come 2018. UGA has received funding from National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the United States Air Force to build two space-bound satellites, but the satellites also have a launch date planned for 2018 from the International Space Station.

As small satellites continue to reduce costs and new developments are made in regards to launching small satellites and customizing them for specific trips, nonprofit organizations and universities are beginning to take their market share of the small satellite market. Students now have the opportunities to build and launch satellites at their schools.

According to redandblack.com, The names of the two satellites, CubeSats, or SmallSats, are SPOC and MOCI. SPOC, or Spectral Ocean Color, will analyze the color of the ocean beyond a visible spectrum. SPOC will help the team understand how water runoff influences the environment and what materials are present in water runoff. MOCI, or the Mapping and Ocean Color Imager, will scan the Earth’s surface and use the images to create 3D maps. It will also be the first time that this has been tried from a low Earth orbit. 

Space X Has Another Successful Launch in Cape Canaveral

This Friday, SpaceX landed its second landing at sea in this past month and it followed a first booster landing in December on a pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This marks an important feat as Space X proved that it's rockets can launch and return in reusable form up to 20,000 miles up.

According to FloridaToday.com, The Falcon 9’s upper stage deployed the more than $100 million satellite 32 minutes after liftoff, placing it on course for an orbit 22,300 miles over the equator. The spacecraft built by Space Systems Loral will deliver high-definition TV and broadband Internet services for at least 15 years to parts of Asia, Russia and Oceania. This achievement was almost completely forgotten about after the rocket launched and landed successfully at sea further ensuring that Space X is in this for the long haul. 

“Woohoo!!” CEO Elon Musk tweeted after the rocket's first stage touched down on a ship about 200 miles off the Florida coast. “May need to increase size of rocket storage hangar.”

The Small Satellite Industry is expected to grow by billions by 2021!

The Small Satellite industry is expected to grow from $2.22 billion to $5.31 billion by 2021 at a CAGR of 19.14% from 2016 to 2021. Whatech.com featured market research as part of their telecommunications market research channel from RnR market research. This article is a summary of their findings.

According to Whatech.com, The small satellite market is driven by factors, such as the increasing focus on reducing mission costs as well as increasing demand for earth observation-related applications of small satellite. Various growth opportunities for the small satellite market include the proposed development of satellite networks to provide internet access to areas without broadband connectivity.

More important, the micro satellite is projected to be the fastest-growing segment in the small satellite market. These satellites are generally used for high precision and complex space missions, such as remote-sensing and navigation, maritime and transport management, space and earth observation, disasters management, military intelligence, telecommunication, and among other academic purpose. Tasks involving mapping and navigation is ultimately going to be the most valuable and important for the satellites to be used for. 

In previous articles, we've explored many companies that are currently utilizing small satellites or developing methods of reducing costs, personalization for specific missions and different regulations or policies being enacted in different countries regarding the small satellite industry. The market research conducted in this article predicts that the Asia-Pacific region is expected to exhibit the highest growth rate in the small satellite market during the forecast period from 2016 to 2021.