Business of Space on Saturday: Shoebox satellites and a Goldilocks planet
This weekend:
· Shoebox satellites prepare for launch
· London scientists spy Goldilocks planet
· The first pictures from $10bn James Webb Telescope
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory prepares for twin launches
Last week’s column explored how miliary interests are boosting an already blossoming industry.
As part of the UK’s £1.4bn investment in space defence, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) confirmed on Wednesday it will launch its first-ever satellites this year.
In what the government believes is the next phase of the country’s growing space research capabilities, the pair of satellites will help support the Ministry of Defence’s ambition to be able to monitor, protect and defend its interests in and through space by 2030.
The two Prometheus 2 CubeSats satellites, built by In-Space Missions and designed by Airbus Defence and Space, will operate in low Earth orbit around 550km above the planet.
But forget about how large you think satellites should be. Space 2.0 has redefined what to expect from upcoming space technology.
DSTL’s satellites are mere centimetres wide – comparable to the size of a shoebox.
“Investing in, developing and proving new technologies and services, with our customers, is a key part of our strategy,” managing director at Airbus Defence and Space UK, Richard Franklin said.
“The Prometheus 2 CubeSats will help us further improve what we can offer our customers and is tangible proof that our active engagement with SMEs is delivering results for the future UK space sector as a whole.”
Just right: London researchers spy Goldilocks planet
In a study lead by researchers at University College London (UCL), there appears to be a planet that could sustain life, which lies in the warmth of a dying sun.
If confirmed, it would be the first time that a potentially life-supporting planet has been found orbiting such a star, called a “white dwarf”.
The planet has been found in the star’s Goldilocks zone, where temperatures are not too warm nor too cold.
“This is the first time that anything has been seen in the habitable zone of a white dwarf. And thus there is a possibility of life on another world orbiting it,” UCL’s professor Jay Farihi told BBC News.
The possibly habitable planet, which is thought to be 60 times closer to the star than our planet is to the Sun, is 117 light years away from Earth.
The first images from $10bn James Webb Telescope
And speaking of far away places -NASA has today released some of the first images from its $10bn James Webb Telescope – the first major space observatory since the Hubble Space Telescope.
The billion-dollar telescope, known as Webb, is NASA’s attempt to unravel the mysteries of how the universe came to be.
Scientists and researchers have been holding their breath since Christmas morning, when Webb first launched, as the scientific and technological feat had quite the journey to get into position – with meteor showers to shield from in the process.
The main photo, which scientists have urged does not even touch the full scale of its capabilities, shows a star called HD 84406.
The photo was taken over the span of 25 hours at the beginning of February.
But for those slightly underwhelmed – rest assured.
“The first images are going to be ugly,” Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “It is going to be blurry. We’ll [have] 18 of these little images all over the sky.”