deep dive
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Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
Designed for a two-year mission to catch gamma-ray bursts in the act, Swift is now 21 years old, slowly falling out of the sky, and the subject of an unprecedented private rescue mission. Nobody planned for it to be this hard to let go.
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DROID.002 - Turion Space's Eyes on the Orbital Junkyard
A 90-kilogram spacecraft with iodine thrusters and two Australian-built cameras is quietly building the case that tracking space debris is a business worth billions - and that a four-year-old startup from Irvine can own it.
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Guowang's First Ten - Inside China's Secretive Megaconstellation
When China finally launched its first batch of Guowang satellites in December 2024, they revealed almost nothing about the spacecraft. Sixteen months and 163 satellites later, the secrecy hasn't lifted - but the orbital data tells its own story.
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EchoStar 25 - DISH Network Launches a New Satellite Into a Shrinking Market
In a year when EchoStar agreed to sell $40 billion in spectrum, tried to give DISH away for a dollar, and nearly went bankrupt, it still managed to launch what may be the most capable direct broadcast satellite ever built. Here's why.
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EUTELSAT 172B
Europe's first high-power all-electric telecom satellite doesn't just sit above the Pacific - it got there on robotic arms and plasma thrusters, broke records doing it, and now keeps your airplane Wi-Fi running between LA and Tokyo.