The Micronesian region comprises the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Palau, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Kiribati. In 2010 the HANTRU-1 fiber cable reached Majuro and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, branching from Pohnpei to FSM, marking the region’s first international fiber backbone. Palau connected to the SEA-US cable in 2017 and is slated to…
Read more
New Zealand regards drones as aircraft, requiring compliance with Civil Aviation Rules Part 101 (up to 25 kg) and Part 102 (advanced operations). The Civil Aviation Act 2023 came into force on 5 April 2025, reaffirming drone pilots’ duties and enabling new rules like registration and Remote ID. Part 101 requires drones to weigh 25…
Read more
By 2025 Starlink had surpassed 8,000 satellites launched and served over 5 million users in 125+ countries, operating at about 550 km altitude with speeds of 50–200 Mbps and latencies of 20–40 ms. Ama zon’s Project Kuiper began launching its 3,236-satellite Ka-band LEO network, with its first 27 satellites launched in April 2025 on an…
Read more
Nauru has a population of about 12,000 and an area of 21 km², with roughly 83% of residents using the internet as of 2023. Since 2022–2023, SpaceX Starlink has become available in Nauru, and the Starlink Community Gateway on Command Ridge began operating in December 2024. In January 2025 Neotel launched a nationwide 5G network…
Read more
NASA Worldview offers over 1,000 imagery layers from NASA and partner satellites, with a typical 60–125 minute delay after capture. NOAA GOES weather satellites update the continental United States every 5 minutes or less and the full hemisphere every 15 minutes, enabling near real-time weather loops. Landsat 8 imagery is available on the USGS server…
Read more
By early 2025, Starlink was available in over 100 countries across every inhabited continent. In the past year, Starlink launched in 42 new countries and territories and surpassed 6 million active customers worldwide. In the United States, the standard Starlink plan costs about $90 per month with a $599 equipment kit. SpaceX added about 2,300…
Read more
Vanuatu is a Y-shaped archipelago of roughly 80 islands with a population of about 330,000, of which nearly 74% live in rural areas. A 7.3-magnitude earthquake in late 2024 severed Vanuatu’s sole international submarine cable, the Interchange Cable Network (ICN1), causing a nationwide internet outage. The ICN1 is a 1,280 Gbit/s submarine fiber cable connecting…
Read more
The HANTRU-1 cable is 2,917 km long with a 160 Gbps design capacity, extended to Majuro and Kwajalein/Ebeye in 2010, linking to a Pohnpei hub and onward to Guam. A 2017 HANTRU-1 cable fault caused a nationwide 3-week outage, forcing a 97% bandwidth cut as the islands relied on limited satellite links. The East Micronesia…
Read more
As of mid-2025, SpaceX Starlink has deployed over 7,600 satellites—about 65% of all active satellites—reaching 4+ million subscribers by late 2024 and 5+ million by mid-2025 across more than 125 countries. Starlink offers 50–200+ Mbps speeds with 20–40 ms latency, using a flat phased-array user terminal nicknamed “Dishy McFlatface” and laser-linked satellites to extend polar…
Read more
Solar Sail Spacecraft Could Enhance Early Space Weather Warnings A new satellite constellation, SWIFT, equipped with solar sails, aims to deliver earlier and more accurate warnings of space weather threats such as coronal mass ejections. These events can disrupt satellite operations, power grids, and pose risks to astronauts. “Our goal is to forecast extreme space…
Read more
