Executive Summary: The Pentagon has long sought a “space internet” – an integrated military satellite network that automatically routes data across U.S., allied, and commercial satellites. This enterprise SATCOM vision promises resilience and high-speed connectivity, but it has been dogged by technical, bureaucratic, and industrial challenges. Recent reporting and studies show that legacy hardware, fragmented…
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What Is Space Weather and Why It Matters Space Weather refers to the changing environmental conditions in space driven by the Sun’s activity – including bursts of solar radiation, charged particles, and magnetic disturbances. Just as terrestrial weather can produce hurricanes or blizzards, our Sun generates “solar tempests” like solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs),…
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Introduction Israel’s space program may be modest in scale, but it has achieved outsized capabilities. In 1988, Israel became the world’s eighth nation to launch its own satellite into orbit nasaspaceflight.com, and today it remains the smallest country to develop indigenous launch vehicles and an operational space agency en.wikipedia.org. What began as a strategic effort…
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China’s space program has rapidly transformed into a space empire of global scale, guided by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). In just a few decades, China went from launching its first satellite in 1970 to operating a fleet of over 1,000 satellites and a fully crewed space station in orbit andrewerickson.com space.com. Today, China…
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Iranian Space Agency (ISA) History and Founding Timeline Iran’s involvement in space activities dates back to the late 1950s, when it became a founding member of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in 1958 en.wikipedia.org. Early efforts focused on satellite communications and remote sensing: by 1976, Iran had established a “Remote…
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The war in Ukraine is not just being fought on land and in the skies – it’s also being waged in orbit. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, both sides have leaned heavily on military satellite services for communication, intelligence, navigation, targeting, and early warning. From SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation keeping Ukrainian forces online to…
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Satellites play a vital role in modern society, supporting communications, navigation, Earth observation, scientific discovery, and security. This comprehensive report highlights 100 of the most important currently operational satellites across five major categories: Communications, Earth Observation, Navigation/Positioning, Scientific & Exploration, and Military/Intelligence. Each entry includes the satellite’s name (and launch year), operating organization, purpose and…
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Jupiter: The Solar System’s Giant Planet Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2019, showcases its reddish-brown cloud bands and the iconic Great Red Spot (lower right) science.nasa.gov science.nasa.gov. A Planet of Superlatives: Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system – so big that if it were a hollow shell,…
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Live satellite imagery has become increasingly accessible, allowing anyone to view near real-time maps of Earth from space on web browsers or smartphones. This report reviews major platforms and services – both free public tools and professional-grade commercial systems – that provide live or near-real-time satellite images. We include official links, key features, platform availability (web/mobile), common use cases…
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Introduction to Satellite TV Satellite television (satellite TV) is a system of delivering television programming to viewers by transmitting signals via communications satellites orbiting the Earth. In a typical setup, broadcasters send their TV feeds to a powerful uplink dish on the ground, which beams the signals up to a satellite in space. The satellite,…
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