In June 2025, T-Mobile began a nationwide beta of its “T-Satellite” service built on SpaceX Starlink technology, with a July 2025 rollout and plans to include it at no extra cost on high‑end plans and about $10/month for others. On June 19, 2025, Vodafone Idea and AST SpaceMobile announced a partnership to deliver 4G/5G access…
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On June 14, 2025, after Israeli strikes, Iran imposed a nationwide internet blackout, and Elon Musk tweeted that Starlink was “The beams are on,” effectively activating Starlink over Iran. The activation made Starlink connectivity available only to users with Starlink terminals, not to the entire Iranian population. Estimates by late 2024 placed roughly 10,000 to…
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Sentinel-1 radar imaged the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019 and revealed approximately 2,165 km² of flooding around the coastal city of Beira. Idai’s satellite flood maps pinpointed about 400,000 people stranded and helped allocate rescue resources. NOAA’s GOES weather satellites monitored Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as it approached the Bahamas, providing real-time…
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February 2009: Iran becomes the ninth country to launch an indigenous satellite with its own rocket, sending Omid into orbit on the Safir launcher. Khayyam (2022) is a 600 kg Earth-observation satellite with 1-meter resolution, built with Russian collaboration and launched by a Russian Soyuz to a ~500 km orbit. Noor-1, Iran’s first military satellite,…
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SpaceX deployed 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine within days of the 2022 invasion, rising to about 15,000 active terminals by June 2022, with Ukraine at one point accounting for roughly 58% of global Starlink traffic. Russia attempted to jam Starlink signals on the battlefield, SpaceX rolled a software update to bypass the jamming, and by…
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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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Syria has conducted annual nationwide internet shutdowns on high school exam days since 2016, with 2020–2025 patterns showing daily outages of roughly 3.5 to 5.5 hours during exam periods. Syria’s shutdowns use an asymmetric model that allows outbound traffic but blocks inbound responses, making the internet effectively unusable. In Syria, the 2023 exam season produced…
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The United States fields the LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM (silo-based) with a ~13,000 km range that carries 1× nuclear RV (W78/W87, ~335 kt) and the UGM-133 Trident II D5 SLBM (submarine-launched) with >12,000 km range capable of up to 8 MIRVs (W76/W88). The U.S. LRHW “Dark Eagle” program develops a long-range hypersonic boost-glide missile with…
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The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation stealth air-superiority fighter that first flew in 1997 and achieved Initial Operational Capability in December 2005, with 187 production aircraft completed by 2012. It can sustain supersonic flight without afterburner, achieving supercruise at speeds above Mach 1.5. In standard configuration it carries eight internally mounted air-to-air weapons: six AIM-120C…
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The F-16 began as General Dynamics’ YF-16 in the USAF’s Lightweight Fighter program, with the prototype’s maiden flight in 1974 and the first operational F-16A delivered in 1979. It introduced relaxed static stability and fly-by-wire controls, enabling exceptional agility and the ability to sustain 9 g turns. The cockpit features a frameless bubble canopy for…
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