Cozy Dark emerging technology began work in 2010 as a skunkworks-style engineering firm and is registered with CCR and NSPIRES.
Our early engineering & design efforts have focused on orbital debris solutions and electrodynamic tether technology.
Zach Urbina founded Cozy Dark with the cooperation of technical, research, and academic colleagues in the Southern California AeroAstro community.
We also have a growing library of space science talks featuring Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, astrophysicist Sean Carroll and more.
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21 posts tagged satellites
NASA Views Our Perpetual Ocean |
The swirling flows of tens of thousands of ocean currents were captured in this scientific visualization created by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
“There is also a 20-minute long tour, which shows these global surface currents in more detail,” says Horace Mitchell, the lead of the visualization studio. “We also released a three-minute version on our NASA Visualization Explorer iPad app.”
Both the 20-minute and 3-minute versions are available in high definition here:http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?3827
The visualization covers the period June 2005 to December 2007 and is based on a synthesis of a numerical model with observational data, created by a NASA project called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, or ECCO for short. ECCO is a joint project between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ECCO uses advanced mathematical tools to combine observations with the MIT numerical ocean model to obtain realistic descriptions of how ocean circulation evolves over time. continue reading
Robert Staehle presents his team’s work on interplanetary cubesats at NASA’s NIAC Symposium on 28 March 2012 [18min:12sec]. Every presentation was uniquely brilliant, but Staehle’s team was of particular interest to long-term Cozy Dark objectives.
My personal favorite talk was Gregory Scott’s discussion of microbial fuel cells (tiny bugs that eat sugar and poop electricity).
This talk has been added to our growing video archive, which includes talks from Buzz Aldrin, Sean Carroll, and several more noteworthy individuals. - ZU
Google looks to build satellite farm in Iowa to receive high speed data |
Google is looking to build an array of 4.5 meter wide satellite dishes in the town of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Company subsidiary Google Fiber — which recently announced plans to lay down fiber optic cable in Kansas City — has filed an FCC Public Notice seeking to build two earth stations in Council Bluffs, which would be used for “analog and digital audio, data, and video services.” Each proposed station would be receive-only, with one covering C-band and the other Ku-band. While a small town on the western edge of Iowa may seem like a strange place for a high-tech satellite farm, Google also currently operates a data center in Council Bluffs that has seen $600 million in investment. continue reading
For Space Mess, Scientists Seek Celestial Broom |
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NASA just gave $1.9 million to Star Technology and Research, a small company in South Carolina, to develop and test technologies for a spacecraft it calls the ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator — Edde, for short. Powered by a 6-mile-long wire — make that “space tether” — that generates energy as it is pulled through the Earth’s magnetic field, Edde would sidle up to a piece of junk, whip out a disposable net to catch it and then move to a lower orbit, where air friction would coax the item to re-enter the atmosphere. Edde, staying in orbit, would then move on to its next target.
Jerome Pearson, the president of Star Technology, says it would take only a few years and a few hundred million dollars for a fleet of Eddes to clean up the near-Earth neighborhood. continue reading
Swiss scientists develop “janitor satellite” to clean up space junk |
Swiss scientists said Wednesday they plan to launch a “janitor satellite” specially designed to get rid of orbiting debris known as space junk.
The 10-million-franc ($11-million) satellite called CleanSpace One — the prototype for a family of such satellites — is being built by the Swiss Space Center at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Lausanne, or EPFL.
EPFL said Wednesday its launch would come within three to five years and its first tasks are to grab two Swiss satellites launched in 2009 and 2010.
The U.S. space agency NASA says over 500,000 pieces of spent rocket stages, broken satellites and other debris are being tracked as they orbit Earth.
The debris travels at speeds approaching 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour), fast enough to destroy or inflict costly and time-draining damage on a satellite or spacecraft. Collisions, in turn, generate more fragments floating in space.
“It has become essential to be aware of the existence of this debris and the risks that are run by its proliferation,” said Claude Nicollier, an astronaut and EPFL professor. continue reading
Hackers plan space satellites to combat censorship |
Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.
The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.
Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.
Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit - usually only for brief periods of time - but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects.
The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.
“The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let’s take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities,” Mr Farr said. continue reading
Innovators Sought for DARPA’s Satellite Servicing Project |
More than $300 billion worth of satellites are estimated to be in the geosynchronous orbit (GEO—22,000 miles above the earth). Many of these satellites have been retired due to normal end of useful life, obsolescence or failure; yet many still have valuable components, such as antennas, that could last much longer than the life of the satellite. When satellites in GEO “retire,” they are put into a GEO disposal or “graveyard” orbit. continure reading
Satellite images of Earth show roads, air traffic, cities at night and internet cables |
Felix Pharand-Deschenes has created global snapshots depicting how power lines, roads and even air traffic corridors have come to dominate the surface of Earth. His visualisations based on real data show air traffic routes, the underwater cables that carry the internet, road and rail networks and electricity transmission lines all superimposed over cities at night.
Felix’s visualisations showing how human technology has taken over our crowded planet come just one week before the global population is set to top seven billion. The United Nations Populations Fund has revealed that by October 31st, there will be an extra billion people on the Earth compared to 1999.
Felix used US government sources like the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Oceanic for railways, pipelines and roads as well as the Atmospheric Administration for the air traffic to piece together the visualisations.
“These pictures show several sides of global human activities,” said 34-year-old Felix, from Montreal, Canada. “We see everything from paved and unpaved roads, light pollution, railways, electricity transmission lines. All the way to submarine cables, pipelines, shipping lanes and air traffic. The show the extent of our civilisation, the patterns of our global sprawl, how human-influenced our planet now is.”
All 13 visuals can be found here
