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After a 25-minute descent, Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe has successfully crashed on the Moon's surface, taking images of the descent like these ones and making yet another man-made hole on the battered Earth's satellite.
With help from its moon photographing probe, the Chang'e 1, China's created the country's first full map of the lunar surface and they're calling it the best one yet. According to the heads of the space program, the map is the most complete image of the moon's surface, as well as the richest in detail, in the world.
It's too bad Gary Gygax is no longer with us, because it would be interesting to get his opinion on SPHERES (for Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites). These prototype devices are currently floating around aboard the ISS as part of an experiment developed by MIT students. The goal is to test flight formations that could one day lead to autonomous maintenance satellites capable of building large spacecraft while in orbit.
It's been a decade since NASA's Lunar Prospector satellite gave tantalising hints—in the form of unexpectedly sparkly reflections—that the Moon's poles may have frozen water at or near the surface, but new data from a Japanese satellite looks like it's quashed the rumour. Kaguya's been in space since late last year, but it's now trained its very highly sensitive cameras, that can see even into the near darkness inside polar craters, on the same spot of the moon Prospector saw. And all it found was dull lunar soil. There may still be water buried beneath the surface of course, but this discovery may be bad news for hopes of using plentiful hydrogen for fuel cells when we go back to the Moon in a decade or so. [NewScientist]
Satellite phones are still struggling to make it into this decade, design wise, but Iridium's new 9555 is a solid leap forward, with its internalised antenna, speakerphone, improved SMS and email and 30% volume reduction in comparison to its predecessor, the 9505a. It's still a piece Gordon Gekko would feel at home with, but I think we can definitely look the other way on clunkiness when we're uplinking to one of Iridium's 66 low-earth birds to call Mum from the barren Mongol steppe while sipping on yak tea--that's persistence that will never go out of style. Out in November for an as-yet undisclosed price. [Electronista]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been pushing for a Russian satellite navigation system known unfortunately as GLONASS, and yesterday the system had its first launch: a tracking collar for the PM's dog, a black labrador named Koni. According to Putin, "She's wagging her tail, she likes it."
As you probably already know, space is full of crap. It's not something the average Joe thinks about, but when the government starts blowing dead satellites out of the sky, it may be time to start worrying whether or not the gadget that brings soft-core pornography to your TV will end up crushing you as you mow the lawn. Researchers at Queen's University are jumping in to help with the problem by developing a robotic repair system that will service the approx. 8000 satellites currently orbiting the Earth. Keep in mind that about only around 800 of those satellites are currently operational.
We warned you that Google would soon be snapping shots of your backyard with GeoEye-1, a military-controlled satellite with the highest-resolution terrestrial camera now in orbit. Well, yesterday at high noon Eastern time, Larry and Sergei's little baby started snapping. But according to Wired, GeoEye's communications guy says "this is the opposite of a spy satellite."
Today Google, along with HSBC and a few other investors, helped place an order for 16 low-orbit Thales Alenia satellites to begin the push for a massive broadband deployment in equatorial Africa that it hopes will help connect 3 billion people in the world who are currently webless. It's a noble plan, with quite a long ways to go.
According to the company, the GeoEye-1 satellite is the highest resolution commercial satellite orbiting the planet right now. It reached orbit yesterday, but in reality, it's not an ordinary commercial satellite: it's fully controlled by the Department of Defense's U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. And two guys named Larry and Sergei.
