The system is designed to be initially 20 square centimeters in size but would inflate about 7,500 times larger to around 1.5 square meters, increasing atmospheric drag to accelerate deorbiting.
The only thing more impressive than seeing that expand out would be watching them pack it down.
After decades of camping, I only recently found out most (modern) sleeping bags are actually meant to be stuffed in their bags, not rolled up. Just kinda keep stuffing it in there and they seem to naturally fill gaps better than if they were rolled up first, so they’re easier and much faster to pack away.
This is Barbara Streissan publicity when you had never thought about her for 50 years. We must all agree to a ban to stop China from working on it, while we “debate American freedom”
Observed magnitudes of Qianfan spacecraft range from 4 when they are near zenith to 8 when low in the sky.
Since this is the first run of the Qianfan satellite constellation, the most appropriate comparison would be to Starlink’s original satellites. As you can see below, the notion that China’s satellites are “significantly brighter than those of Western systems” is a inaccurate.
The Original spacecrafts have a relatively flat phase function, so they are comparatively bright over a wide range of phase angle. […] the characteristic magnitudes are: 4.7 (Original) […]
The mean apparent magnitude of Starlink Mini Direct-To-Cell (DTC) satellites is 4.62 while the mean of magnitudes adjusted to a uniform distance of 1000 km is 5.50.
Clearly, even the newest Starlink satellites are well above the magnitude 7 limit astronomers recommend for satellite brightness.
spacenews.com
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