Enlarge/ Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Roscosmos Space Corporation Chief Yuri Borisov peruse an exhibit while visiting the Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, October 26, 2023, in Korolev, Russia. (credit: Contributor/Getty Images)
Based on preliminary data, nearly 2,400 spacecraft have been launched into orbit this year. A significant majority of these, about 75 percent, were Starlink satellites built and flown by SpaceX. But other countries, such as China, have also built and launched hundreds of satellites this year.
There has been a dramatic growth in the production and launch of satellites into low-Earth orbit in recent years due to a few different trends. One is the commercialization of satellite production. Satellites for Earth observation and communication are becoming smaller and more affordable, and thanks to rideshare options, it costs less to launch them.
Second, and most importantly, is the emergence of satellite megaconstellations that provide low-latency broadband Internet. Most prominent among these is SpaceX's Starlink constellation, but it is far from alone. In addition to the nearly 4,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, OneWeb has about 600 operational spacecraft. Other commercial constellations, including Amazon's Project Kuiper, are also coming. And both China and the European Union have announced plans to develop megaconstellations for communications purposes.
Находи идеальные места для персонажей-фигурок в «Is This Seat Taken?»
The US Air Force wants to test blowing up Cybertrucks because 'it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cyber trucks'
Mafia: The Old Country получила положительные оценки в Steam
Modders are trying their hardest to add an NVMe SSD to the Switch 2, which is both impressive and something I'm not going to do
