Video: Watch this Space - Episode 1
Jun 11, 2016
“Watch this Space” is a little experiment of mine to try and show people what is going on in Earth orbit. In this episode we cover all of the satellite launches and newly tracked pieces of debris for May 2016.
All of the object orbits are taken from real tracking data (from http://www.space-track.org) so every single coloured dot is a real object. The positions and motion of the objects relative to the Earth are to scale but each objects size is greatly exaggerated (otherwise there would be nothing to see!).
The objects covered are:
New Satellites
JCSAT-14 JCSAT-14 replaces JCSat 8 at 154° East longitude and expands on its capacity to meet the growing demand for telecommunications infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region. Launched by Falcon-9.
YAOGAN 30 The Chinese Yaogan-30 remote sensing satellite was launched on the 15th May via a Long March (Chang Zheng) 2D (Y27) rocket. The launch was from the from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
MINXSS MinXSS is a 3U CubeSat solar physics mission from the CU (University of Colorado) at Boulder, designed to better understand the energy distribution of solar flare SXR (Soft X-ray) emissions. It was deployed from the ISS on 16th May 2016.
CADRE CADRE is a collaborative space weather 3U CubeSat mission from the University of Michigan (UMich), Ann Arbor, NASA/GSFC, and NRL (Naval Research Laboratory) of Washington DC. It was also launched on the 16th May 2016 from the ISS.
STMSAT 1 STM-Sat-1 is designed to perform Earth observation. Built and designed by elementary school students, supported by technical advisors from NASA. Launched on the 16th May 2016 from the ISS.
NODES 1and 2 NASA’s Nodes (Network and Operation Demonstration Satellite) is a mission to demonstrate new network capabilities critical to the operation of swarms of multiple spacecraft. Launched on the 16th May 2016 from the ISS.”
FLOCK 2E and 2E The Flock Earth observing constellation built and operated by Planet Labs consists of numerous triple CubeSats. 8 flock 2E and 2E’ satellites were launched from the ISS in May.
New Debris
NOAA 16 DEB 50 new pieces of NOAA-16 were tracked in May (making the total number over 300). NOAA-16 was decommissioned on 9th June 2014 after a critical anomaly and broke up in November 2015.
RESURS P2 DEB 2 pieces of debris from the Russian commercial Earth observation satellite Resurs-P2 were tracked in May.
BREEZE-M DEB 4 new pieces of debris from Breeze-M (Briz-M) upper stages were tracked in May to add to the over 500 pieces already in orbit.
Other Articles
Reflecting Space Symposium Feb 2, 2018
Young Weir-Wise: Discovering Engineering with S2 Girls Jan 29, 2018
The Naked Scientists - Question of the Week Dec 12, 2017
2,000,000 YouTube Views! Aug 5, 2017
Glasgow Science Festival: My Favourite Doomsday Talk Jun 14, 2017
Scottish Space School VR Space Debris Workshops Jun 14, 2017
Space Debris Workshops for P6/7 students at SmartSTEMS Jun 7, 2017
Contributing to the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial 22 October – 20 November 2016 Oct 9, 2016
Contributing to Natures Weirdest Events - Series 5, Episode 1, BBC2 Sep 29, 2016
Video: Watch this Space - Episode 2 Jun 25, 2016
Video: Watch this Space - Episode 1 Jun 11, 2016
Space Debris Wallpapers - May 2016 Jun 6, 2016
Talking Space Debris with BBC Radio Bristol Jun 1, 2016
Space debris talk at the Royal Institution Mar 11, 2016
Launch of the UCL Aerospace Engineering Minor Jan 20, 2016
When space debris goes viral... Jan 1, 2016
Video: Space Debris 1957-2015 Dec 22, 2015
Royal Institution Advent Calendar: A History of Space Debris Dec 7, 2015
Future London 2015 Nov 5, 2015
Spark Festival 2015 Aug 31, 2015
St Pauls Way Science Summer School 2015 Aug 26, 2015
Creating a 4K Time-Lapse Video using Open-Source, Cross-Platform Tools Jul 28, 2015
Video: Time-lapse of Building a 3D Printer Jul 26, 2015
2015 Student Choice Teaching Awards Nomination May 7, 2015
Aviation Xtended interview on my space debris research and new aerospace course at UCL Mar 6, 2015
My appearance on episode 1 of "Keeping it Civil", the new podcast from CEGE at UCL Feb 11, 2015
Slides from "Describing the World in 3D: Matrices and Vectors" Nov 25, 2014
2014 "How to Change the World" Course Jul 10, 2014
My PhD Thesis - "Distributed Agents for Autonomous Spacecraft" May 10, 2014
2014 Student Choice Teaching Awards Nomination Apr 30, 2014