Last week, San Francisco based startup-Planet Labs Inc.-launched 28 mini satellites into orbit with the aim of being the first to capture continuous high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface 365 days a year. Called “Flock 1” and “Doves,” these individual ...
NanoSail-D Deployed
An artist rendition of a deployed solar sail. Source: NASA Engineers at the National Aerospace and Space Agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama have deployed the NanoSail-D solar sail in low Earth orbit. The 100 square foot sail ...
Displaced Orbits Possible
Scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland are claiming that maintainable displaced orbits – orbits above or below the standard geosynchronous orbits – may be possible with the help of solar sails. Scientist and science fiction writer Robert ...
Space Sunshade to Reduce Global Warming
Researchers at the University of Arizona are developing an ambitious space sunshade system that could reduce the sunlight reaching the Earth by 2%, enough to balance the heating effects of the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Composed ...