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Archive for 10. August 2010

Solar Tsunami… Satellites Beware! NASA, [SATNEWS]

10. August 2010 by admin.

* Not too many people care about the activity of the sun. Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) operators that use the HF bands might care a little bit. We are a Solar Minimum, a Sunspot Cycle Minimum. But we are in Cycle 24 and on the way up.

This page: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/10jan_solarcycle24/ says:

“Solar cycles usually take a few years to build from solar minimum (where we are now) to Solar Max, expected in 2011 or 2012.”

And this page: http://www.arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere tells you why Amateur Radio Operators would care about this. But basically radio propogation (getting distance or DX) has been in the pits for awhile. When we get to the max then supposedly a lot ham radio bands will jump to life. A lot of frequency bands will open up that haven’t been of much use maybe all the way up to VHF bands.

“allowing the ionosphere to refract higher frequencies (15, 12, 10, and even 6 meters) back to Earth for DX contacts. ”

* But anyway back to Solar Tsunami thing …

http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=1435611044

That’s a good read … supposedly this solar activity, storms even, Coronal Mass Ejections, can wreak havock on a lot of things that we take for grant it. For example modern power and communications infrastructures.

I found this video, out of many that I found on YouTube, to be interesting … even though it wasn’t a current 2010 Solar Tsunami video … it did show and explain a whole lot more about this stuff. So it got my vote:

—
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If GPS tells you where You are then what tells Satellites where they are? Satellite Operators Team To Avoid Collisions (Aviation Week) [SatNews]

10. August 2010 by admin.

* This story brought up a good question from me: If GPS Satellites tell us where we are then what tells them where they are? Or any satellite for that matter? Satellites get “parked” in Geostationary Orbit when launched (for the Geo Satellites) and maintain their parking space … somehow? But do they know where other satellites (and other space junk) are? Can they avoid collisions? (Joke: Satellite-to-Uplink_Station, hold please…, I’ve gotta jump out of the way of this other satellite thats flying way off course and is about to cream me! Be back in a minute…)

http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=406168219

Satellite Operators Team To Avoid Collisions (Aviation Week)

[SatNews] A new cooperative data tool will help keep geostationary commercial communications satellites from colliding or causing signal interference, a service its initiators hope to extend to government spacecraft and satellites in low Earth orbit as well.

Spurred in part by the February 2009 collision between an active Iridium spacecraft and a defunct Russian military-communications satellite, the new Space Data Center automatically plots conjunctions in the orbits of satellites owned by participating operators and alerts their control centers to the problem.

The non-profit organization that runs the system, which is currently limited to 126 satellites in geostationary orbit, is already in talks with U.S. Strategic Command on trading the data it has for better space-debris ephemera and a heads-up when one of the commercial spacecraft in the system is in the way of a military spacecraft.

(more at the link above)

* See also: How Do GPS Satellites Know Their Location?

http://geology.com/nasa/how-do-gps-satellites-know-their-location/

Quasars, and International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), and Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) - OH MY!!!!