Rocket Launches Record Number of Satellites: 10
	The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launched by the India Space Research Organization yesterday at 03:50 GMT from the Sriharikota space station put into orbit no less than 10 satellites in an attempt to overpower the other major competitors in the multi-billion-dollar space market. India benefits from a space program spanning over 45 years and has demonstrated that it is able to put a satellite into a precise orbit although the launcher was ... [read more >>]
	29 April 2008, 05:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Oldest Objects in the Universe, Not So Old After All
	Globular star clusters are believed to be amongst the oldest objects in the universe, some with ages exceeding 13 billion years. They can be usually found in the company of other galaxies as satellites, containing several million stars packed into a very small volume of space. Because they contain some of the first stars in the universe, globular clusters are extremely important for cosmologists. The problem is that according to a recen ... [read more >>]
	29 April 2008, 03:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ghostly Images
	Although this imaging technique has been around for some time, researchers have yet to find a practical application for it. Now, a new study into the generation of such images may open ways towards applying the technique in satellite imaging through clouds or even smoke. Yanhua Shih from the University of Maryland, along with Ron Mayers and Keith Deacon of the US Army Research Laboratory have been recently able to create a ghost ... [read more >>]
	24 April 2008, 06:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Vulture UAV to Glide in the Sky for 5 Years
	The Pentagon has decided: out with the Northrup Grumman project and in with Manassas Vulture high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle. The Vulture will be used by the Pentagon as a surveillance and communications aircraft, which can be repositioned on an area of interest and fly high enough to capture a wide view image of the ground beneath it, something which cannot be done with the satellites currently positioned on the Earth’s or ... [read more >>]
	23 April 2008, 07:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Elektrobit Satellite PDA – Windows Mobile 6.1 and Other Goodies
	Elektrobit, a Finland-based company, announced the future release of their first PDA, under the name of "EB Satellite/Terrestrial Reference PDA Phone". Despite this not quite attractive name, the future device will apparently bring together both good looks ... [read more >>]
	23 April 2008, 04:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

'Killer' Asteroid Estimate Corrections Dismissed by NASA
	A few days ago, 13 year-old German Nico Marquardt seemed to have embarrassed all NASA scientists when he announced that the odds of asteroid Apophis hitting the Earth in 2036 have been greatly underestimated. The funny thing is that many sources rushed to state that NASA and the ESA confirmed the schoolboy's results, only to be refuted several days later. According to NASA, the calculations made by Marquardt are generally c ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2008, 06:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

German 13 Year-Old Corrects NASA Estimates on 'Killer' Asteroid
	2004 MN4, or most popularly known as asteroid 99942 Apophis, is a near Earth asteroid discovered in December 2004. Apophis measures about 400 meters in diameter and upon its discovery, it was given a chance of 2.7 percent that it will hit our planet in 2029. On 19 October 2006, NASA estimated that Apophis had a change of 1 in 45,000 of colliding with Earth on 13 April 2036 and 1 in 12.3 million that it will hit our planet one yea ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 06:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Air Force Plans to Deploy Ultra-Fast Internet Node In Space
	United States Air Force Secretary plans to add more satellite clusters and IP routing devices into space, in order to boost the satellites' performance. According to Wynne, the current embedded routing technology is not efficient anymore. "Even as we've moved to smaller mission satellites, embedded router technology has gone bonkers. We need to start applying all the new developments in the LAN to space," h ... [read more >>]
	10 April 2008, 06:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Toshiba Updates Satellite Notebook Line with Fusion Finish
	Toshiba has just announced an update to its Satellite notebook line, that now comes with enhanced design and increased functionality. The new Satellite offerings sport Toshiba’s Fusion Finish in a Horizon pattern, that give the notebooks an unique blend of appearance and texture. The Satellite U400, Satellite M300, Satellite A300 and Satellite P300 are the four updated computers that now sport Sleep-and-Charge USB ports and fa ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 06:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Meteor Shower Spotted on Mars
	Meteor showers occur on Earth every year. Some individual meteors streaming through the Martian atmosphere have been observed as well, however this is the first time when a full meteor shower is detected. By tracking the paths of the comets passing through the vicinity of Mars, UK scientists believe that they can predict meteor showers on Mars the same way meteor showers are predicted back here on Earth. "Just as we can predict me ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 04:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Vega's Second Stage Engine Completes Testing
	Vettore Europeo Di Generazione Avanzata, or Vega for short, is an expendable launch system developed by the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. It is designed to carry satellites with masses between 300 and 2,000 kilograms into space and insert them into polar and low Earth orbits. It consists of three solid rocket booster stages, namely P80 – the first stage, Zefiro23 and Zefiro9, and a liquid upper stage, AVUM. ... [read more >>]
	31 March 2008, 06:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

More Weird Objects Raining from the Heavens
	No surprise here! Out of the few couple of millions of objects floating around in Earth's orbit, at least some must come back from time to time. Just last week, a cattle farmer from Australia reported another incident in which a strange object suddenly appeared in a remote region of the northern outback. He believes that the giant ball of twisted metal, which appeared for no reason, might be a piece of space junk from a rock ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2008, 06:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Toshiba Introduces Centrino 2 Laptops, Forgets About Tech Specs
	Toshiba has announced a new update to its upcoming Satellite and Satellite Pro machines based on Intel's Centrino 2 platform. However, it seems that the PC vendor rushed in showing the world the next generation of notebooks, because Intel has not finished yet revamping the ex-Montevina platform. According to the company, the refurbished Satellite family comes with a glossy black finish and a slim-line chassis designs. The ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 11:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Crippled Satellite Left Little Debris
	Good news for NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. The destruction of the USA-193 spy satellite last month left a minimal field of debris in Earth's orbit, according to Rear Admiral Alan Hicks, responsible for the Pentagon's Aegis ballistic missile defense program. In the outcome of the report release, Admiral Hicks said: "We though there would be much larger pieces," however none of the debris left by the expl ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 06:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Clean Up Space
	There is an enormous number of objects remnant from previous missions currently orbiting Earth, most of which have the potential of seriously damaging spacecrafts intersecting their trajectories. Only last year, the destruction of China's Fengyun-1C satellite left behind about 150,000 individual objects less than a half of an inch in size, and the accumulation of debris will not stop very soon, says NASA's Orbital Debris Program. ... [read more >>]
	19 March 2008, 11:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Oldest Satellite in Orbit Turns Fifty
	Fifty years ago, on this very day, the Unites States Navy launched the fourth artificial satellite into space, Vanguard 1, the first satellite into Earth's orbit to be powered by sunlight. Its mission was to test the capabilities of a three-staged vehicle and the effects of the space environment on artificial satellites and the systems they were using at that time. As of 2007, Vanguard 1 became the oldest satellite, and spac ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 03:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rocket Fails Upon Satellite Orbit Insertion
	The Russian-built Proton-M rocket launched from the Kazakhastan Baikonur cosmodrome on Saturday at 02:18 a.m. Moscow time, carrying a U.S. telecommunications satellite, but was unsuccessful in putting it in the planned orbit because of an engine failure. The satellite is owned by the SES Americom telecommunications provider, built by Lockheed Martin and has the ability to alter its telecommunication coverage by simply patching it ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2008, 06:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

One Down Two to Go, Iran Officials Say
	Exactly a week ago, the state-run Iranian television published a brief news report which stated that Iran had officially opened its first space center and launched its first rocket into space. Not much has been said about the rocket, except that it carried a payload consisting of some scientific instruments to measure the high altitude atmosphere and that its is name Kovashgar-1, which in English means Explorer-1. Although information ... [read more >>]
	11 February 2008, 07:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way Already Colliding with Magellanic Clouds!
	Astronomers from CSIRO have recently discovered, with the help of radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri, that gas coming from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds is penetrating through the material disk of the Milky Way right over to the other side. Such gas flow observations may eventually provide data that would reveal the ultimate fate of the little galaxies, in the near vicinity of our Milky Way. The leak of matter was dubbed H ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 10:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What's Iran Really up to?
	Iran had a field day on Monday after reporting that it had successfully launched into space its first rocket, thus becoming one of the 11 countries in the world to have capabilities of launching satellites into space. The launch hasn't been confirmed yet by the international community, but could be one of those 'true' claims, similar to the technological achievements reported in the last year which haven't bee ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 07:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Spy Satellite Most Likely to Fall in North America
	On Tuesday, the U.S. military warned that a large spy satellite owned by the U.S. has lost power, is decaying its orbit and will most likely hit the Earth in the next two months or so. USA 193's size suggests that, as it will re-enter the atmosphere, it will not burn completely and some parts may end up of the surface almost intact. The situation is a double edged sword if I may, as it is not clear yet where the satellite wi ... [read more >>]
	30 January 2008, 02:57GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

India Launches Israeli Spy Satellite
	The launch that took place from the Sriharikota space station, at 03:45 GMT, was carried by the Indian authorities in the greatest secrecy, as the vehicle carrying the satellite has not been publicly announced or scheduled for launch. This represents the second successful launch of a foreign satellite by the Indian Space Research Organisation, after the launch of the Italian satellite back in April last year. India has as priority to join ... [read more >>]
	21 January 2008, 10:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ulysses Is Not Afraid of a Little Sunshine
	The beginning of the 24th solar cycle, announced by the appearance of the first sunspot in the early days of the new year, caught the Ulysses spacecraft just over the north pole of the Sun. This is the first spacecraft to view the Sun's north pole in the first stages of a solar cycle. The Ulysses spacecraft is the result of a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency and was launched into space with the help o ... [read more >>]
	16 January 2008, 03:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Episode of Lost in Space: Arirang 1 Missing in Action
	Excuse me just a minute as I try to stop myself from laughing. Alright... so again, how do you lose a multi-million dollar satellite? I mean aren't they suppose to be bulletproof or something? Losing certain things is natural, it happens to all of us; however, this must have been a rather unpleasant experience for South Korea. Arirang-1, or Arirang I, represents an unmanned artificial satellite launched on December 21st, 1999, by ... [read more >>]
	07 January 2008, 07:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Wireless Power Transmission May Soon Be a Fact
	Unlike other ideas proposed by certain people, including filling up the atmosphere with colloidal carbon in order to block the sunlight and cultivate seaweed to extract the carbon dioxide excess, it seems that, at this year's UN climate conference, the Pentagon finally had a realistic solution for an alternative electric energy source. The idea is not exactly new, in fact it is rather old. The first such microwave power ... [read more >>]
	28 December 2007, 05:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Earth Used as a Spy Satellite?
	The homicide detectives from the Melbourne department have recently started investigating a murder case, which seems to be taken out of a thriller that cannot be broadcasted before midnight. The body was found wrapped in plastic bags and dumped in the front yard of an empty Melbourne house that had an overgrown lawn, which covered the body all too well. Imagine the surprise and owe of the owner of the Springvale house, in View ... [read more >>]
	13 December 2007, 14:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

ESA Decided to Help Launch the Last Two MSG Satellites
	The European Space Agency agreed to provide crucial launch control services for the two remaining satellites MSG-3 and MSG-4. Under the agreement ESA will provide their services to the European Organisation of Meteorological Satellites to provide control services during the launch and the early orbit phase. The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, MSG-3 and MSG-4 are scheduled to launch in January 2011 and January 2013 ... [read more >>]
	06 November 2007, 10:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Earth Gets Stunning 60cm Satellite Imagery
	Google's downloadable mapping tool gets some new high resolution photos with several locations of the world. Moreover, the web-based technology Google Maps will be also improved soon as the super giant plans to make both solutions powerful enough to provide almost the same content through different ways. According to Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist, Google Earth was updated with 60cm satellite imagery, no matter whether we're talk ... [read more >>]
	03 October 2007, 02:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A New Line of Toshiba Laptops to Be Launched
	Toshiba just announced the launch of a new line of mobile computer systems and the three new laptops are now available under the Satellite U305 commercial designation. The new mobile computer systems from Toshiba are aimed at providing users with plenty of computing power as well as mobility. The new line of Toshiba Satellite U305 starts with the U305-S7477 model that is bringing the Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium operat ... [read more >>]
	02 October 2007, 12:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Earth to Get Amazing High-Res Photos
	The downloadable mapping tool Google Earth is about to receive some fresh high-resolution photos as DigitalGlobe, one of the main providers of satellite imagery, will launch a new satellite today. WorldView-1 is scheduled to be launched on September 18, 11:35 AM PDT, the entire event being accessible live on the Internet. According to DigitalGlobe, the new satellite will capture photos from approximately 750,000 square kilometers ... [read more >>]
	18 September 2007, 09:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

NASA Imagery Available for Your Free Download!
	NASA took the decision to publish an impressive collection of pictures on the Internet in order to allow the free download of every user who is interested in seeing moon missions or other space photos. The entire process will be enhanced by Internet Archive which will cover all the costs of the operation as numerous pictures provided by NASA are not yet available as digital content. At this time, a huge collection of pictures ... [read more >>]
	30 August 2007, 05:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Great Disappointment: No Possible Life on Enceladus
	Disappointment for the alien life hunters. The only plausible model explaining the arrangement of fractures and ridges documented by Cassini on Enceladus, Saturn’s icy moon, shows no liquid water and thus an unlikely environment for life. In June 30, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has detected a south polar region of Enceladus with a complex pattern of fractures and ridges, high heat radiation and geyser-like plumes made of ice crystals a ... [read more >>]
	20 August 2007, 04:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Thuraya SG-2520, the World's Smallest Satellite Cellular
	Thuraya SG-2520 is one highly appealing alternative to regular looking handsets. The fact that it packs satellite, GSM Tri-band and GPS performances too in one single device deserves overlooking the drawbacks that such a handset also brings. The possibility of placing satell ... [read more >>]
	16 August 2007, 08:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Brazil Revives Space Program with New Rocket Launch
	A new rocket was launched this week from the Alcantara launch site near the northeastern city of Sao Luis, in an effort to revive Brazil's space program, halted after a terrible accident that claimed the lives of 21 people, in 2003, including several scientists, when a satellite-launching rocket exploded at the same launch site. But that is now a thing belonging to the past, which the Brazilian Space Agency wants to put ... [read more >>]
	20 July 2007, 11:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Discovered Saturn's 60th Moon
	Saturn is a curious planet, not because it's a gas giant, the second largest planet in the solar system, or because of the fact that its equatorial and polar diameters differ by almost 10%. The most interesting aspect of this giant is the number of satellites. People often enjoy gazing at the Moon, our only natural satellite that inspired so many poems, love stories and movies. But what would it be like to look at sixty moons? Ast ... [read more >>]
	20 July 2007, 04:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google and NASA Release Major Google Earth Update
	The Mountain View company and NASA partnered to bring impressive new imagery into the famous Google Earth mapping tool. Basically, the new update is divided into three parts: astronaut photography of Earth, satellite imagery and earth city lights. According to Wei Luo, Senior GIS Specialist the first layer of the new pack of pictures includes the best pictures made since 1960 when the astronauts captured pictures with the Earth u ... [read more >>]
	20 July 2007, 03:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Radioactivity Gave Saturn's Moon Strange Walnut Shape
	Although we are used to the round or oval shape of most celestial bodies, some of them are just defying the cosmic laws and display some really weird characteristics. Saturn's moon, Iapetus, is one of these strange appearances, because it looks like a walnut instead of a sphere. The third-largest moon of Saturn is known for its strange exterior aspect, having a unique equatorial ridge so high that it visibly distorts the ... [read more >>]
	18 July 2007, 06:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Pluto's Moon Charon, the Strange Ice Machine of the Solar System
	Charon is the largest satellite of the now dwarf planet Pluto, also referred to as Pluto I, over half the diameter of Pluto, dominated by what was thought to be stable water ice and it has no atmosphere. It is largely an icy body and contains less rock by proportion than its partner Pluto, supporting the idea it was created by a giant impact into Pluto's icy mantle. New observations of the satellite revealed an inter ... [read more >>]
	18 July 2007, 03:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Biggest and Brightest Night Shining Clouds Seen Over the North Pole
	Noctilucent clouds, meaning "night shining" are getting bigger and brighter and that's why NASA is trying to find if they're a sign of global warming or unrelated appearances in the night sky in the northern hemisphere. First observed in 1885, two years after the Krakatoa eruption, the clouds are usually only seen at high latitudes, but in recent years, the evening clouds have been spotted farther to the S ... [read more >>]
	11 July 2007, 06:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Gamma-ray Observatory Will Search for the Most Energetic Phenomena in the Universe
	A new instrument went online at the ESO Telescope at the La Silla Observatory and was able to take images simultaneously in seven colors, to examine the most energetic phenomena in the universe, the gamma-ray bursts. From time to time, a huge explosion followed by a bright flash of light can be observed in space. It's a colossal gamma-ray burst (GRB), emitting for a few seconds as much radiation as a million galaxies. ... [read more >>]
	10 July 2007, 05:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Earth Is Smaller than Previously Thought!
	No, the world does not fit into your hands, but is smaller than people believed when they previously measured it. The discrepancy is minute, but the team of geodesists from the University of Bonn says it is significant. They have remeasured the size of the Earth, as part of a long lasting international cooperation project. Their final results show that blue Earth is some millimeters smaller, a fact that can result important, ... [read more >>]
	06 July 2007, 06:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Earth Shows Picture of Secret Nuclear Submarine!
	Google Earth is an interesting tool for looking at various places in the world that you haven't visited yet. It's true that some pictures are clearer than others, depending on the country and frankly, nobody would expect to see a picture of a village in Somalia as clear as the one of the Eiffel Tower. But nobody would expect to see what a policy analyst discovered one day while making his regular checks of the maps: ... [read more >>]
	06 July 2007, 03:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Giant Cosmic Sponge May Have Ingredients for Life
	New observations of the giant cosmic sponge orbiting Saturn suggest that it might contain all the right ingredients for life. If proven, this could mean that ideal conditions for the appearance of life are not so scarce and that what we thought to be a probabilistic oddity may in fact happen a lot more often. The giant sponge's name is Hyperion, and it's a really strange satellite of Saturn. It's strange becau ... [read more >>]
	06 July 2007, 02:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Solve the Mystery of Giant Space Sponge Orbiting Saturn
	Hyperion, a satellite of Saturn, is one of the strangest moons in our solar system, whose behavior and composition has puzzled astronomers for many years. This moon really looks like a giant cosmic sponge, but there are many more weird properties that have just recently been explained. A highly irregular body in the solar system, it doesn't even resemble a sphere and is marked by a huge crater on the surface, approximately [ADMARK ... [read more >>]
	05 July 2007, 03:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Use a Global Positioning System Without the Satellites
	GPS receivers have become widely used in recent years, with satellite signals being used in navigating airplanes, ships and automobiles, and in cell phones, mining, surveying and even transferring money, but even the most expensive piece of technology can't function without a satellite uplink. Is it? Well, almost. The northern regions, like the Scandinavian countries, can't use the GPS like the other countries, beca ... [read more >>]
	03 July 2007, 09:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Next Terrorist Targets Could Be the Satellites, Said US and Romanian Scientists
	China's shootdown of an old communication satellite two months ago using a new missile was the first successful demonstration of an anti-satellite missile by any country in more than 20 years. The U.S. perceived the test not only as a proof of China's increasing military capabilities and ambitions, but also as a possible threat to its dominance in military space. The problem is that anti-satellite systems could also be used b ... [read more >>]
	25 June 2007, 03:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Cancel Spy Satellite Program
	The director of US national intelligence stated this week that a multibillion-dollar spy satellite program has been canceled, but gave no reason for his recent decision. Mike McConnell is the spy chief that almost ventured into disclosing some juicy details about the mission, but, unfortunately for us, he stopped in time. It's kind of strange that this announcement comes three days after the National Reconnaissance Offi ... [read more >>]
	22 June 2007, 02:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Rocket Carrying Spy Satellite Had Technical Problems
	The Atlas 5 rocket - built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and marketed under a new Lockheed-Boeing Co. joint venture called United Launch Alliance and directed by the National Reconnaissance Office that was carrying a secret spy satellite into space, encountered some technical problems right after launch. The NRO - one of the 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. which designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United S ... [read more >>]
	18 June 2007, 15:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Launched Rocket on Secret Spying Mission
	NASA's space program is not the only one to carry people and equipment into orbit. There is also the spy-satellite program, which is not so exposed to the media, and not much is disclosed about the secret cargo of some rockets that also take off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. As secret as their cargo is, they can't hide a launch from the press, so the news about the unmanned heavy-lift Atlas 5 rocket tha ... [read more >>]
	16 June 2007, 06:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Two Small Saturn Moons Found More Active Than Previously Thought
	Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun, is a gas giant and the second largest in the solar system. As of 2007, a total of 57 individual moons have been identified around the planet, plus 3 unconfirmed moons that could be small dust clumps in the rings. 35 moons have been named. Many of the moons are very small: out of 57, 31 are less than 10 km in diameter, and another 13 less than 50 km. Tethys and Dione are two small moons, and recent ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 08:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia