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A secretive US spaceship will attempt flight maneuvers above Earth that have never before been performed. We are talking about the Boeing X-37, a reusable robotic spacecraft. The X-37 is boosted into space by a launch vehicle and re-enters Earth’s atmosphere landing as a spaceplane. The project began as a NASA project back in 1999, but it was transferred to the US Department of Defense in 2004. The X-37 is presently operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, in collaboration with United States Space Force. It is used for ‘orbital spaceflight missions’ that are intended to...

A Russian satellite believed to be part of Moscow’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon program appears to be malfunctioning, with erratic movements suggesting it may no longer be operational. The development could be a major blow to Russia’s military space ambitions, US analysts said. Cosmos 2553 was launched just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Over the past year, it has shown signs of uncontrolled tumbling, according to radar data from LeoLabs and optical tracking shared by Slingshot Aerospace with Reuters. The satellite is believed to serve as both a radar tool for intelligence gathering and a platform for radiation testing....

It may sound like the beginning of a Star Trek plot, but there’s a very real arms race going on in space. And Russia may have just made the first move. According to some startling reports, Russian military satellites have apparently launched unknown objects into Earth’s orbit. Space.com described the trio of Russian satellites as “secretive” objects “whose purpose is unknown.” “The three satellites, designated Kosmos 2581, 2582 and 2583, launched on a Soyuz-2.1V rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome early on Feb. 2,” the outlet reports, adding that the satellites “have displayed interesting behavior.” That behavior includes getting oddly close to...

Elon Musk's SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on Friday won U.S. Space Force rocket launch contracts worth a combined $13.5 billion through 2029 to send some of the Pentagon's most sensitive and complex satellites into space. The Space Force's flagship National Security Space Launch procurement program will assign roughly 54 missions through 2029 in incremental task orders, according to its Space Systems Command office.

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has directed two intelligence agencies to train their satellite surveillance capabilities on the U.S.-Mexico border region as part of a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and drug cartels. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which are part of the Department of Defense, oversee spy satellites and analyze imagery for the Pentagon and other intelligence organizations. Their engagement, coupled with troop deployments, shows increasing militarization of the southern border, where President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency. Reuters could not determine whether the effort, which has not...

This technology aims to revolutionize the way satellites are sent into space, using a giant rotating arm to fling satellites into low Earth orbit.

SpaceX carried out back-to-back launches of Falcon 9 rockets carrying Starlink satellites into orbit early Saturday, just hours after U.S. officials lifted a temporary ban on the rocket fleet. The company first launched the Starlink 8-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:43 a.m. EDT, and quickly followed that just an hour later with another Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Together, the flights delivered 42 Starlink satellites, including 26 with Direct to Cell capabilities, to low-Earth orbit,

SpaceX debuted a new Falcon 9 first stage booster as it launched a batch of Starlink satellites on Tuesday morning. The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex in Florida at about 9:20 a.m. EDT, near the end of the launch window, as weather conditions improved. The rocket was carrying 22 Starlink satellites. Lifting off with a new first stage, the Falcon 9 rocket left the Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex at about The new first stage booster, B1085, performed as expected on its return to Earth eight minutes after takeoff, sticking the landing on the...

SpaceX launched 21 Starlink satellites into orbit from a Falcon 9 rocket Saturday morning in clear skies from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, one day after the mission was scrubbed because of poor booster recovery conditions. The 230-foot rocket lifted off at 8:50 a.m. from pad 40. It was Space X's 52nd launch this year from Florida. Eight minutes later, the booster landed on Read the Instructions offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. That was the 21st time the booster landed on the drone ship and the 88th overall on the droneship. About an hour after liftoff, the satellites went into...

SpaceX launched 23 Starlink satellites into orbit early Friday morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 1 a.m., EDT, with the first stage returning to Earth to stick its Atlantic Ocean landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas. SpaceX moved back the launch for nearly an hour into the launch window, which opened at 12:19 a.m. The company did not explain the delay. Factors that could have played a factor in the delay include weather and the position of the drone ship. Friday's launch was the 12th for the booster...

BEJING -- China will start building this year its own version of StarLink, a satellite internet constellation using low Earth orbit, with plans of launching some 26,000 satellites to cover the entire world led by state-run companies.Now that the military use of satellite-based communications systems for warfare in such places as Ukraine and Gaza is increasing, China will set up its own satellite network to compete with the U.S. as a "space power."

The US has new intelligence on Russian military capabilities related to its efforts to deploy a nuclear anti-satellite system in space, according to multiple sources familiar with the intelligence.The intelligence was briefed to Congress and key US allies, and some lawmakers say it is serious enough that it should be declassified and made public. While the intelligence is concerning, multiple senior members of Congress briefed on the information on Wednesday emphasized that it does not pose an immediate threat to the US or its interests. The system remains under development and is not yet in orbit, according to three US...

Iran said Sunday it successfully launched three satellites into space, the latest for a program that the West says improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles. The state-run IRNA news agency said the launch also saw the successful use of Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which has had multiple failures in the past. The launch comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON — The United States led the world, far surpassing both China and Russia, in the number of space launches and satellites placed on orbit in 2023, according to a just-released study. But rather than the US government it is one US company, billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, responsible for that victory — a situation that is not new, but one that has been exacerbated since 2019 and the firm’s first launch for its Starlink mega-constellation to provide global internet access. The numbers capture a number of key trends, including Russia’s failure “to keep up with evolving launch capabilities by the...

Even in a “radio quiet zone” in outback Western Australia, the satellites' emissions were far brighter than natural sources. VIDEOS & PICS AT LINK.................. When I was a child in the 1970s, seeing a satellite pass overhead in the night sky was a rare event. Now it is commonplace: sit outside for a few minutes after dark, and you can’t miss them. Thousands of satellites have been launched into Earth orbit over the past decade or so, with tens of thousands more planned in coming years. Many of these will be in “mega-constellations” such as Starlink, which aim to cover...

Hello freepers, need some help figuring out what my wife and i just saw in the nighttime skies over rural western wisconsin. To be honest we are a bit stunned and baffled: At approximately 8:56pm central time, we were standing on our lake dock after closing up chicken coop for the night. My wife looked up and westward into the clear night sky: "look, a satellite - wait, another...now another" In total, 23 total "satellites" went from west to east directly overhead. They were perfectly spaced out, and in a perfect line (precision). zero sound. i say "satellite" because they...

The Chinese government seeks strategic advantage in space through attacks on the Western private sector. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force officers Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui Wang argued in their 1999 book, “Unrestricted Warfare,” that to win a war with the United States, China must mass its intelligence, economic, and political resources where U.S. defenses were weakest: its private sector. The book today reads like a plan for the past two decades of non-military warfare waged against the Western private sector by Beijing and its business surrogates. The U.S. government and its allies have recently shown increasing concern about...

A mysterious Russian satellite with a shady mission has broken apart in Earth's orbit, creating a hazardous cloud of debris zipping around the planet and menacing other satellites, US Space Force announced. The 18th Space Defense Squadron said on Twitter Monday that it had confirmed a satellite called Kosmos 2499 had broken apart into 85 pieces. Previous collisions and satellite break-ups have created far larger and more hazardous debris fields than this. But the pieces of Kosmos 2499 are orbiting at an altitude of about 745 miles — so high that they'll probably be there for a century or longer...

Russia is considering shooting down commercial Western satellites as payback for aiding Ukraine in the war, which could put the US and Kyiv’s other allies on a collision course with Moscow. Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy head of Russia’s delegation at a UN arms control panel, said the use of Western satellites to help Ukrainian forces on the battlefield was “an extremely dangerous trend.” “Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” he told the UN First Committee, adding that the West’s use of such satellites to support Ukraine was “provocative.” “We are talking about the involvement of components...

The SLS will also be carrying a secondary payload, a series of shoeboxes sized satellites that it will jettison as it travels towards the moon. Though the SLS can host 17 of these diminutive science experiments, the Artemis 1 payload will be comprised of 10 units. Cubesats are remarkable for their efficiency, low cost, and compatibility with larger payloads. Though they are usually restricted in mass to between 2.2 and 22 lbs (1 and 10 kilograms), cubesats are usually measured and classified by 'units' (U) with each unit representing a cube of 10 centimeters (3.93 inches) each side. The majority...