August 2017
Big science from small spacecraft
... seen by radio telescopes on Earth because they are blocked by our ionosphere. If we could position a radio telescope up at geostationary orbit (GEO) or higher, well above the ionosphere, we could observe and characterise these short-lived phenomena...
February 2019
The Space Elevator – an alternative path to space?
... structure around an equilibrium of acceleration. This can happen in a stationary orbit around a rotating celestial body or a Lagrange point. Geosynchronous equatorial or geostationary orbit (GEO), offers such an equilibrium for Earth. A body such...
August 2019
Lessons from the Sun
... after, a spectacular aurora, bright enough to cast shadows, appeared along the southern coast of Britain. Spacecraft in geostationary orbit effectively became solar wind detectors as Earth’s magnetic shield buckled under the extreme solar wind...
January 2020
Satellite-based IoT - the race is on
... LEO/GEO interference. Twenty years ago the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) declared that NGSO (non-geostationary orbit) craft carry the responsibility for avoiding interference with GEO satellites. Consequently, the need to mitigate the...
January 2021
Time to change our relationship with space?
... I moved office furniture! Perhaps I should have said Rocket Scientist! Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites operate in geostationary orbit nearly 36,000 km over the west coast of Africa, from where they continuously scan the globe, showing...
01 June 2021
Space junk collision highlights need for intervention
... services. It is estimated that there are around 34,000 trackable objects - larger than 5-10 cm in low Earth orbit (LEO) and 30 cm to 1 m in geostationary orbit (GEO) - as well as several thousands to millions of non-trackable debris particles...
