Aerospace Technology

The era of satellites was born when the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite into space called Sputnik in 1957. Since then, people have developed and created new satellite technology such as communication satellites, direct broadcasting satellites, early warning satellites, spy satellites, scientific satellites, weather satellites, infrared satellites, x-ray satellites, remote sensing satellites, and even the Hubble Space Telescope which is considered a satellite. These satellites helped develop the world with its own technological thrust with the use of different kinds of satellites mentioned above. If people think about it, without any sort of satellite, we wouldn’t be as technologically advanced in our current world and the word “modern” would be decades away. The creation and development of satellites have benefited our human community with communications, warnings, and even in-depth information about our solar system. The birth of satellites has been a benefit to our technological society.           Even if you don’t realize much about this, satellites allow many items to function. For example, your cell phone cannot work unless you can get connection from range in a base station. In addition, international calls would be impossible without the use of Iridium satellites. Iridium was the first system to become operational. It uses 66 satellites that orbit the earth at a height of about 485 miles. If someone (could be you) were to call someone in another country, your call would be linked to an Iridium satellite and it sends it to other Iridium satellites until it reaches a specific Iridium satellite that covers the area where the person who is getting called is located. If the person does not own an Iridium phone, the call will get sent to an Iridium ground station and the message would get converted into an ordinary telephone system. Iridium satellites help people call internationally. There used to be a global communication system called Ellipso and its plan was to put its satellites into “sub-constellations” because it had high and low orbits in specific populated areas where the satellites are able stay longer. However, the system became a technical challenge as the cell phones began to develop. As the cell phones became slimmer and smaller, the Ellipso system began to get challenging and consequently, the system failed and is no longer in use. Global communication satellites ensure the use of international phone calls.     During the Cold War, the United States felt that the ground-based radar sites did not provide an early warning in case of a missile attack. Therefore, the Defense Support Program (DSP) created early warning satellites to detect any launches from anywhere in the world. With these warning satellites, the United States were able to be protected by surprise missile attacks. According to Jim Winchester, the DSP was a main factor in Americans winning the Cold War. Currently, the DSP is considering launching another satellite constellation of a new type of global satellite coverage called the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). It will consist of 24 of these satellites to track all launch movements in the world. The DSP believes that the SBIRS satellites would be able to provide information about a general guess of the location of the missile’s target and is given the nickname, “Brilliant Eyes”. They will work in pairs to continuously track data with each other and will be able to keep its target in complete view. During Operation Desert Storm, the DSP detected all of the Scud missiles that were launched toward civilians and soldiers. The DSP satellites detected the missile within seconds from lift-off. As a result, many civilians and soldiers were saved because of the DSP’s warning satellites. The SBIRS program that is currently being developed will cost approximately 22 billion dollars. However, most military commanders believe that each dollar is worth of accurate knowledge of missile attacks.           Since the Space Age when Sputnik first left the earth, scientific satellites have been absorbing information about our Earth or the mysteries of space. Try to recall those moments in the elementary library where you first saw those round ball things with different sizes called planets in little science books. Those pictures and small captions of information of the planets are the results of scientific satellites. Not only does the scientific satellites provide humans with pictures and information, it saved the city of Los Alamos, New Mexico with a satellite called Landsat 7. As a uncontrollable fire was advancing towards Los Alamos, Landsat7 was able to detect the size and movement of the fire and with that information, firefighters figured out hotspots and turned off the dangerous wild fire. Several scientific satellites are studying the Sun’s magnetic field and solar wind. They have found out that an outburst from the Sun can disrupt radio communications and cause chaos in the technological society. Also, the satellites have been sent to many different planets to research their physical appearances, their history, and different moons. These satellites have found out that Mars has evidence of an ancient river valley that can signify life. Furthermore, these satellites have discovered possible oceans beneath Jupiter’s moon called Europa’s icy crust. As Jim Winchester, author of Space Missions, wrote in his book, “These and other satellite missions continue to push back the boundaries of the known universe, expand our knowledge of our own world, and increase our understanding of our place in the cosmos.”           Since the 19^th Century wars, and World War 1 time periods, reconnaissance was commonly used to spy on enemy positions. In 1960, the United States built spy satellites to spy on Russian activities. The CIA flew a spy satellite in 1960 called Corona and took pictures on film. The Soviet Union sent its first space satellite called Zenit in 1962 where it also sent filmed pictures back to the country. Since then, the United States began improving its spy satellites to target specific individuals or groups amongst the people of the criminal world. Today currently, the smallest thing that can be seen through a spy satellite is a size of a house, however, the technology is improving so fast that soon, “spy satellites could soon be reading the headlines on a newspaper” according to the National Reconnaissance Office in Washington D.C. and NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites. Numerous people believe that if spy satellites were developed enough to see the physical description of an individual soldier or vehicle, combat would differ greatly. With spy satellites monitoring the ground with real-sized images from space would benefit the military commanders with new tactics and strategies against the enemy’s “exposed formation” (Jim Winchester). The use of spy satellites can be used for police purposes as in finding captives or witnessing crimes. It can also be used to gain information about the enemy by its strategies and formations during wartime. Although in my opinion, the spy satellites do not help the human population but the military commanders and police force and additionally, it doesn’t help the country’s economy but it certainly is an advantage in lowering crime rates.           Weather satellites have been created to forecast the weather. However, it may seem very beneficial to human communities but in reality, advance knowledge of dangerous rain, winds, or storms can help save crops and even lives. The world’s first weather satellite is called the Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) went into orbit in 1960 and began broadcasting almost 650,000 images. After this accomplishment, other countries began launching their own meteorological satellites. Currently, more than 120 countries receive most of their weather information from United States satellites. After the weather satellite engineers gained more experience and knowledge, they began creating satellites that began recording atmospheric and ocean temperatures and even estimating rainfall. These weather satellites can help the human community by warning people of an incoming tornado 25 minutes before the storm. It can also record the world’s ocean currents and even hear signals from ships. These weather satellites help us give an image of what our next day will be like and without these satellites, many people could have been killed by an unexpected tornado or hailstorm in the middle of an outdoor party. Because of the weather satellites, people are able to predict what our next day’s weather will be but it can also warn us of an upcoming storm.           Satellites have been part of our technological society with the involvement of cell phones and the weatherman of the morning forecast in our daily news channel. It also benefits us with the warning of an incoming missile and it fills our library with information about the planets and stars with the scientific satellites. The spy satellites will be able to help the military commanders with new tactics and strategies as well as helping the police force to maintain contact with dangerous individuals and catch them in the act. The creation of satellites has been technologically beneficial to us, humans, because it is constantly providing us with daily information about weather predictions and even new knowledge about the boundaries of space limitations. In my opinion, satellite technology is a benefit to our world.Information from Space Missions From Sputnik to SpaceShip One: The History of Space Flight. Book written by Jim Winchester.            Spy satellite image                      

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 5:06 p04 and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.