‘Megaconstellations’ of satellites increasingly launching into orbit around Earth will contaminate the data astronomers collect — and profoundly shift humanity’s view of the night skies. That’s the conclusion of the most detailed assessment yet of how these satellite networks, launched by companies including Amazon and SpaceX, might affect astronomical observations from Earth.

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Most detailed report yet about the impact of giant satellite clusters says damage to observations is unavoidable — and offers mitigation strategies. Most detailed report yet about the impact of giant satellite clusters says damage to observations is unavoidable.

While SpaceX didn’t pull off a doubleheader Sunday launch like it planned, the company still managed a rare feat. Instead of launching eastward like every other Cape Canaveral rocket, the Falcon 9 headed south toward Cuba, close to populated areas on Florida’s coast (via The Verge). The “SAOCOM 1B” mission marks the first such “polar launch” from Florida since 1969, made possible by a special Air Force exemption for SpaceX.

Satellites bound for polar orbits (where a satellite passes over both the North and South Poles), usually launch from Vandenberg Air Force base in California. That way, they can head due south directly over the ocean without passing over any populated areas. By contrast, flights from Florida always head east over open seas, as southbound flights have been off-limits due to the presence of cities like West Palm Beach below.

Live coverage: Rocket Lab launches Capella’s first commercial radar satellite – Spaceflight Now.

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Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand carrying Capella Space’s Sequoia radar remote sensing satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Rocket Lab’s live video webcast begins approximately 15 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.

SpaceX launched Argentina’s SAOCOM 1B radar observation satellite from Cape Canaveral at 7:18 p.m. EDT (2318 GMT) Sunday.

A Falcon 9 rocket headed toward the south on a trajectory hugging the Florida East Coast on the first flight into polar orbit from Cape Canaveral since 1969, and the first stage booster returned to the spaceport for an onshore landing minutes after liftoff.

Continuing coverage: https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/2020\/08\/30\/falcon-9-saocom-1b-mission-status-center\/

A NASA geophysics satellite’s long space odyssey is nearly at an end.

The Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1 spacecraft, or OGO-1, launched in September 1964 to study Earth’s magnetic environment and how our planet interacts with the sun. The satellite gathered data until 1969, was officially decommissioned in 1971 and has been zooming silently around Earth on a highly elliptical two-day orbit ever since.

Optical communications, transmitting data using infrared lasers, has the potential to help NASA return more data to Earth than ever. The benefits of this technology to exploration and Earth science missions are huge. In support of a mission to demonstrate this technology, NASA recently completed installing its newest optical ground station in Haleakala, Hawaii.

The state-of-the-art ground station, called Optical Ground Station 2 (OGS-2), is the second of two optical ground stations to be built that will collect data transmitted to Earth by NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD). Launching in early 2021, this trailblazing mission will be the linchpin in NASA’s first operational optical communications relay system. While other NASA efforts have used optical communications, this will be NASA’s first relay system using optical entirely, giving NASA the opportunity to test this method of communications and learn valuable lessons from its implementation. Relay satellites create critical communications links between science and exploration missions and Earth, enabling these missions to transmit important data to scientists and mission managers back home.