Government/Military

The European Space Agency, in collaboration with the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, created GlobWetland products and services. This offering uses satellite imagery to provide detailed wide-area views of individual wetlands. GlobWetland has been designed based on the specific requests of wetland managers across 50 sites in 21 countries worldwide. The satellite products include base maps, land...

By Jason Bates When the first commercial imagery satellites were proposed, owners and investors had visions of billions of commercial dollars dancing through their heads. But the commercial market forecasts for the industry were proven to be wildly exaggerated, and the satellite operators struggled for years. Today, the industry has righted itself, thanks to help...

A House Armed Services Committee subcommittee approved $51.5 billion for the U.S. Department of Defense‘s space and missile defense programs for fiscal 2007, shifting some dollars away from high-risk systems to more proven technologies. “The subcommittee is concerned with striking the right balance between technical risks and providing increased capability for the warfighter,” Rep. Terry...

British scientists discovered rivers flowing under the Antarctica ice shelf by examining small changes in elevation using data collected by a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite. The team found anomalies in the surface elevation of the ice sheet, the oldest, thickest ice in the region,using ultra-precise measurements from ERS-2’s radar altimetry and radar interferometry, according...

The launch of Digitalglobe’s next-generation Worldview 1 commercial imagery satellite has slipped by an estimated six months to mid 2007 but is not expected to create a gap in coverage, according to company and U.S. government representatives. Digitalglobe, which already operates the Quickbird imagery satellite, is building Worldview with Ball Aerospace and ITT Industries for...

Polar stratospheric clouds often are referred to as mother-of-pearl clouds because of their iridescent appearance. But in recent years, the clouds have become the focus of many research projects years due to the discovery of their role in ozone depletion. These clouds form in altitudes between 20 and 30 kilometers when temperatures drop to -80...

Sometimes, the gamble pays off. That’s what Xtar’s investors must be thinking now that this commercial X-band operator has signed another distribution deal with a government satellite services provider. To add to their belief that they guessed right when investing in commercial X-band satellites, the U.S. military has admitted that it will not become self-reliant...

LEO or GEO? That’s the question being pondered by Globalstar, as its first-generation fleet of 40 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites ages. With the fleet designed to last into 2010, "we believe that now is the time to get moving on its replacement," Megan Fitzgerald, Globalstar’s senior vice president, Strategic Initiatives & Space Operations, said. In...

An international team of scientists are working at a rapid pace to study environmental conditions behind the fast-acting and widespread coral bleaching plaguing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Data from NASA observation satellites has provided scientists with near-real-time sea surface temperature and ocean color data to give them faster insight into the impact coral bleaching can...

Despite the projected delay of at least several years in the first launch of the United States’ next-generation weather satellite, the availability of current environmental sensing spacecraft should prevent a gap in coverage, officials involved in the development of the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), as reported in Satellite News‘ sister publication Defense...