In 2018, LinkSure announced plans for a 272-satellite constellation to provide free global Wi-Fi by 2026. Quika offered a mostly free satellite broadband in parts of the Middle East and Africa, delivering about 3 Mbps down/1 Mbps up, but installation and a hardware deposit were still required. There is currently no genuinely free satellite internet…
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In 2024 the US conducted 154 orbital launches, while Europe managed only three, underscoring Europe’s push to establish launch facilities in Sweden and Norway for continental autonomy. Starlink now has over 7,500 satellites in orbit and 5 million users, and operates on 1,000 aircraft, including 54 Qatar Airways Boeing 777s. France and the UK each…
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Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images in Chile, capturing 10 million galaxies in a single frame and previewing the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to map billions of galaxies. Curiosity rover on Mars captured a 360-degree panorama of boxwork ridges at Gale Crater using 291 Mastcam images. China’s Tianwen-3 Mars Sample…
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ESA’s Biomass satellite, the first with a P-band SAR, released its initial high-resolution images and enables 3D mapping of forest structure for carbon accounting. Rocket Lab’s 67th Electron launch deployed four satellites—three HawkEye 360 Cluster 12 microsatellites and the experimental Kestrel-0A—marking the ninth Electron mission in 2024. Amazon’s Project Kuiper added 27 satellites to reach…
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured images of exoplanet TWA 7b, a Saturn-mass planet orbiting the young star TWA 7, using high-contrast imaging and a coronagraph. Israeli airstrikes on western Iran targeted military satellites, air defense systems, and missile infrastructure, using around 20 fighter jets and over 30 munitions. ESA’s Biomass satellite, launched in April,…
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On June 23, 2025, ULA’s Atlas V launched 27 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites, bringing the constellation to 54 in Low-Earth Orbit and targeting a 3,232-satellite network. Spain’s INFOCA expanded wildfire response by integrating SPOT satellite devices with Globalstar and Technosylva wildfire modelling for real-time location tracking, with a webinar scheduled for June 30, 2025. A…
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Over 5,400 Earth observation satellites are projected to be launched globally from 2024 to 2033, nearly triple the previous decade. NOAA’s GeoXO program will deploy at least three geostationary satellites (with options up to four more) to upgrade GOES-R and extend Western Hemisphere coverage, following a $2.27 billion contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in 2024.…
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In the first four months of 2025, over 1,200 satellites were launched, roughly a 50% increase from the same period in 2024. SpaceX’s Starlink had more than 7,000 small satellites in orbit by late 2024, with 573 Starlinks launched in Q1 2025 and about 9,000 laser inter-satellite links moving some 42 petabytes of data per…
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1859: British astronomer Richard Carrington observed a powerful solar flare, and within a day telegraph systems worldwide went haywire while auroras appeared near the equator—the Carrington Event, the largest geomagnetic storm on record. During the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year, Explorer-1 became the first U.S. satellite to discover the Van Allen radiation belts encircling Earth. SOHO,…
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Starlink Constellation (2019–present) by SpaceX comprises about 4,500 microsatellites in ~550 km LEO with Ku/Ka-band user links and laser crosslinks, enabling global internet including disaster response. James Webb Space Telescope (2021) features a 6.5 m segmented mirror and instruments NIRCam, NIRSpec, and MIRI, delivering the deepest infrared images of the universe including SMACS 0723 and…
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