22 Sep Eyes From the Sky: HawkEye 360
HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge
HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge27 Jul Communication from the Sky: Sky and Space Global
A CAD model of a SAS satellite in low earth orbit. Credit: SAS
There are over 5 billion unique mobile subscribers (as of August 2017) in the world. Despite this prevalence, there’s a considerable proportion of the population which lacks this access. The global sphere sees three billion people without access to affordable communication services. Connecting such populations through terrestrial means is a monumental challenge in geographically dispersed regions – Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Sky and Space Global seeks to address the challenge of global communication.
Sky and Space Global (SAS) plans to close the gap in the market between existing satellite communications operators, such as Iridium, Inmarsat and Globalstar, and land-based mobile networks such as Vodafone, Telefonica, Airtel and Safaricom. Affordable mobile services are critical for the economic and social development of many developing countries.
Sky and Space Global is working on a constellation of 200 nanosatellites of the 3U configuration in equatorial or near-equatorial low earth orbit (LEO) for narrowband communications. The total cost of all the satellites is expected to be $150 million. SAS is the first company to consider using nanosatellites for communication.
09 Jul Space: Mechanical Launch Vehicle by HyperV
A company called HyperV Technologies Corporation based in Chantilly, Virgina, USA, is working on a mechanical launch vehicle called the Slingatron. The Slingatron is a mechanical hypervelocity mass accelerator which can be used to launch objects (also called payloads) into Earth orbit at a significantly lower cost than what's done today. Just like the early railroads which opened up remote areas here on Earth, the Slingatron mechanical launch vehicle can open up the next frontier, i.e. space. Launching into low earth orbit (LEO) requires accelerating a payload to 7.6 km/sec. Traditional approaches use rocket fuel which is terribly inefficient leading to only about 4% of the rocket mass for payload while the other 96% is for rocket fuel and giant propellant tanks.
Slingatron negates the need for rocket fuel or fuel tanks. The Slingatron does this by a mechanical acceleration approach much like a classical sling. In the traditional case, a man twirls the sling above his head in an outward spiral accelerating the stone. In the Slingatron case, a mechanical motor does the same thing while the payload is on an outwardly spiraling railroad track that is mounted to the mechanical motor.
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