On today's episode, we are getting into the latest space news, including Amazon
launches their first Kuiper Internet satellite, Northrop Grumman partners up for the next NASA
space station, and a new thermal imaging satellite is going to change the way
we develop our cities. This is the space race. Amazon has finally launched
their initial round of Project Kuyper communications satellites, beginning the first real competition to
the SpaceX Starlink Internet service. The October sixth launch was completed by the United
Launch Alliance aboard one of their Atlas five rockets. A pair of test satellites
were loaded into a payload fairing and launched at about two pm Eastern Standard time.
Project Kuiper is Amazon's version of the SpaceX Starlink service, using a constellation
of relatively small satellites to cast broadband Internet to customers by bouncing signals between the
ground and the vehicles in orbit. As usual, Amazon is fairly tight lipped
over exact specifications of their hardware. They even had the ULA cut the live
feed just before vehicle deployment started in the upper atmosphere. But we do know
that while Starlink can functionally provide anywhere from fifty megabits per second to one hundred
and fifty megabits per second with its standard package. Amazon is advertising up to
four hundred megabits per second with Kuyper. This is largely due to Amazon's twelve
ground relay stations, which aren't built yet, and SpaceX has applied for their
own ground station permits, so the two seam neck and neck for capabilities,
with the exception of SpaceX actually having operating hardware. Obviously, Musk's company does
have a bit of a head start in that department, with an estimated three
thousand, five hundred satellites currently providing service, but Blue Origin has a plan
to catch up and an FCC license to launch three thousand, two hundred and
thirty six new Kuiper SATs by twenty twenty six. Originally these were due to
go up on the new Ula Vulcan rocket, but with delays continuing for the
ULA's new vehicle and their own new Glen rockets still in the prototype phase,
Blue Origin purchased a ride on nine Atlas five rockets instead. They also made
contracts with aary in Space to use their Arean six rocket, which is also
experiencing delays. The obvious choice here would be to make use of SpaceX to
launch the Kuyper constellation, but it seems that Bezos is holding a bit of
a grudge and is willing to get sued by his shareholders for it. But
it seems like the company is only wasting time. Back in July, Amazon
announced its plan for a one hundred thousand square foot satellite processing plants at Florida's
Launch and Landing Facility in NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This facility would be where
Amazon would receive completed satellites from their factories, inspect them, and process them
for launch on a nearby pad once Blue Origin is able to get their rockets
up and running. Of course, we probably don't have to remind anyone that
the FCC only just close their mishap investigation into Blue Origin's new Shepherd vehicle two
weeks ago and demanded organizational changes as one of its requisites for a new launch
license. This leads to the obvious question. If Amazon and Blue Origin keep
stumbling around with delays and inefficient organization, then how exactly are they continuing to
operate. Aside from the obvious wealth of the company, the real thing To
note here is the contract's Blue Origin holds with government agencies, specifically the US
military. Again, this is not something Blue Origin has over SpaceX. Musk's
company also has a lot of important military contracts, but Project Kuiper is built
to directly link with the DoD's Mesh network of low Earth orbit satellites. Back
in October of last year, Amazon's execs sat down with folks from the military
to discuss using Project Kuiper to enhance the speed and reach of the military's orbital
network, and they agreed. These first two Kuiper test satellites will reportedly also
be testing the laser communications uplink with those very systems, meaning the DoD is
very interested in getting Amazon caught up to competitors like SpaceX. Amazon and Blue
Origin certainly have their work cut out for them. It would be much easier
if they just asked space for some help, but it seems like they're fine
with going it a bit slower. It is Amazon's mo to see what the
competition is doing and then undercut their prices to kill off their business, So
who knows, maybe they can do that with broadband satellites. On October fourth,
Voyager Space announced that they would be partnering with veteran aerospace company Northrop Grumman
to build a commercial space station for NASA, meaning that Northrop Grumman would be
backing out of their previous solo contract to do the same. Voyager, and
more specifically, its subsidiary, Nano Racks, was already planning their own station,
called Starlab, due to launch as a single flight project sometime in twenty
twenty eight. Some of you might remember last year's orbital cutting tests from the
Nano Racks team, who were attempting to showcase their orbital cutting technology. At
the time, the company believed they could make use of this tech to recycle
old rocket hulls for commercial use as station modules, something that Starlab could facilitate
once complete. The original vision hasn't changed much yet. The station is design
and as a science park, allowing NASA and anyone who pays to gain access
to a slew of modern microgravity laboratories. Really, the only thing to change
so far is that Northrop Grumman will be contracted to supply the station with an
upgraded version of their Sickness Cargo drone for the first five years or so.
Back in twenty twenty one, Northrop Grumman, along with Nano Racks and Blue
Origin, were selected as part of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program to
design and construct new stations that the administration could use once the ISS is deorbited
at the end of this decade. This is part of NASA's new tactic of
providing commercial entities their expertise and some funding in exchange for letting them make use
of any new facilities and technology that comes out of the deal. But while
the other two are going strong, Northrop Grumman has apparently decided their plan wasn't
going to be feasible. To be fair, Northrop Grummen has been mostly an
infrastructure company for some time now. Their Sickness cargo vehicle is reliable, for
sure, but they're a company that that's more used to making parts rather than
pursuing large complex projects on their own. Aside from that, they likely didn't
have the funding to finish. NASA gave each company some funding for the research
and prototyping. Blue Origin got one hundred and thirty million, Nano Racks got
one hundred and sixty million, and Northrop Grumman got one hundred and twenty five
point six million. Amazon owned Blue Origin definitely had the capital to make a
station all on their own, and Nano RAS is funded primarily by Voyager Space
and had technology already to go for station building. So it looks like Northrop
Grumman made a pragmatic decision to help the other small company challenge one of the
billionaires, and it's probably for the best. STARLAB seems like a solid plan
for a station, and Northrop Grumman are season professionals at cargo running. The
only thing they had to give up was the rest of the research funding.
NASA says the remaining eighty nine million dollars will be spread among the active projects,
including the new Northrop Grummen Voyager partnership and act Space, who have been
working on their own station using a habitation module from an earlier experiment. It
must be pretty rough to realize you can't effectively compete with other companies, but
Northrom Gumman is definitely making the smart move here, so let's hope they see
lots of contracts. The first images from the new hot Sat one thermal imaging
satellite have just been released and the resolution is wild. Run by London based
company satview. The hot SAT one represents a huge leap forwards in thermal imaging
technology, opening the door to some extremely important uses for the type of images
we are seeing. Take these first images, for instance, the initial crop
of red and blue scale pictures were taken of urban areas in Chicago and Las
Vegas. As with most thermal imaging software, the darker and bluer an area
is the colder it is, and vice versa for heat. The big difference
with hot SAT one is the level of detail. Before this new satellite,
thermal imaging of this type had a resolution of only a about one hundred meters
or so at its finest, and this is mostly because of how difficult it
is to snag a thermal image. Some thermal imagers have been able to shoot
very fine detail shots, but those techniques can only show current thermal properties,
not change over time. For that, a lengthier exposure time is needed because
thermal wavelengths of light are longer, meaning a slow shutter speed has to be
used. Even though most satellites travel at about seven kilometers per second, hots
AT one is equipped with a midwave infrared camera and more importantly, better tracking
software to keep the lens pointed at the target more smoothly, and the results
speak for themselves. Remember earlier when we said previous imagers could only grab resolutions
of one hundred meters at the finest detail level, Well, these new images
from hots at one are at ten meters of resolution, ten times finer,
and it can even take short videos. So obviously this is the sort of
thing that gets firefighters and climatologists excited. Which a good view of a moving
wildfirefront or the heat mixing of a body of water in finer detail is wonderfully
helpful to both those fields. But for really the first time, hotsat one
is letting a whole new field make use of thermal imaging. City planners.
One hundred meters of resolution is fairly useless for catching building to building evidence of
heat loss or gain, but ten meters that's a whole new ballgame. Look
again at the pictures of Chicago and Las Vegas. You can see the right
lines of individual streets, not just highways, and the patches of parking lots.
You can see most buildings are relatively cold because insulation generally does a good
job, but that industrial buildings like oil tanks and processing factories are very hot
and in some places, like sat Views, Native England homes are generally much
older and have worse insulation. Hots At one could point out exactly which buildings
need fixing. Aside from that, a lot of work is being done in
modern city planning to get rid of these heat islands as they're called. These
are pockets of open air, parking lots, and knots of roadway that largely
contribute to the higher heat range of most cities. And we knew that before
hots At one, But it's hard to plan mitigation options when the roadway you're
trying to see is actually a patchy blur. This technology is just a start.
Of course, Satview has a plan to get a constellation of eight to
ten satellites up eventually. It is honestly wild to see satellite thermal imagery go
from being useful for just weather pattern data to helping us build our homes and
cities more efficiently.