industryterm:satellite launches

India Launches 104 Satellites From a Single Rocket, Ramping Up a Space Race - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/world/asia/india-satellites-rocket.html?_r=0

India’s space agency launched a flock of 104 satellites into space over the course of 18 minutes on Wednesday, nearly tripling the previous record for single-day satellite launches and establishing India as a key player in a growing commercial market for space-based surveillance and communication.

The launch was high-risk because the satellites, released in rapid-fire fashion every few seconds from a single rocket as it traveled at 17,000 miles an hour, could collide with one another if ejected into the wrong path.

NASA Renews Contract With Russia To Transport U.S. Astronauts
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/nasa-renews-russia-contract-transport-us-astronauts/27173213.html

NASA notified Congress August 5 that it is renewing a contract with Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station for the next two years, at a cost of nearly a half billion dollars to the United States.

The U.S. space agency’s chief Charles Bolden said he was forced to extend the contract because of budget cuts that delayed efforts to revive a U.S. human flight program.

The deal to pay Moscow more than $80 million per Soyuz rocket seat, up from $71 million per seat under the previous contract,comes at a time when Washington is ratcheting up sanctions against Russia in response to its aggressive moves in Ukraine.

U.S. reliance on Russia for transporting crew to the station contrasts sharply with Congress’ ban on imports of Russian rocket engines for U.S. military satellite launches.

NASA expects that eventually, private U.S. companies like Space X and Boeing will develop rockets and capsules that are able to carry astronauts from the United States into space.

Les sanctions, ça commence à bien faire…

The world needs a rocket tax to solve the “Gravity” space junk problem – Quartz
▻http://qz.com/132545/the-world-needs-a-rocket-tax-to-solve-the-gravity-space-junk-problem

Earlier this year, a group of economists from Indiana-Purdue University, the US Federal Communications Commission, and the US Naval Academy tried to figure out how to limit the potential damage to a satellite industry that is responsible for everything from internet communications to GPS networks, and which was worth some $170 billion in 2012.

http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/leo1280.jpg

(...) The study found that commercial #satellite firms launch more satellites than is “socially desirable,” and they use launch technology that is more likely to create debris “because they only compare individual marginal benefits and costs of their technology choice and fail to take into account social benefits and costs.” That puts space debris squarely into the category of a “negative #externality,” (...)

One answer, they suggest, is a tax on satellite launches that could be used to pay for orbital clean-up

#espace