Jeffrey writes in his recent post about BX-1 being a Rorschach test and he appears to be right on so many levels. I thought I’d riff off of his excellent post and focus in on one aspect that has been bothering me for quite a while: defining what maneuvering actually means. You see, space isn’t …
BX-1 Panic
by | 2008-12-23 | 19 Comments
You can see an animation of the BX-1 companion satellite at 1:57 into the clip. Anybody remember that really boring paper I wrote, in 2004, calling for “rules of the road” regarding autonomous proximity operations? (That’s when satellites maneuver around one another.) Me neither, but according to the internet, I said: The launch of a …
Britain's Independent Deterrent
by | 2008-12-22 | 13 Comments
Sorry for the light blogging of late. I got a chuckle out of this story: US firms now control UK’s nuclear weapons plant LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government said Friday that a state-owned nuclear group has sold its stake in the company that manages the U.K.‘s atomic weapons research center, bringing the facility under the …
SBIRS—Two Heads are Better than One
by | 2008-12-17 | 1 Comment
click on the image for a larger version The currently active US early warning satellites, SBIRS and DSP: each satellite is removed one at a time to highlight its individual coverage. Orbits have been determined by the amateur satellite observer network, see-sat, with particular thanks to Mike McCants, Greg Roberts, Peter Wakelin, and Scott Campbell …
