Iran sends a rocket designed to carry satellites into a suborbital test flight
The test was the latest for a program that the West says improves Tehran's ballistic missiles.
A report by the official IRNA news agency said the Ghased satellite carrier test aimed at 'assessing some emerging new technologies in the country's space industry.' It said the test results will help improve the function of Iran's satellites and space systems.
The report did not provide any further details on the test flight or from where the rocket was launched.
Iran from time to time Iran launches satellite carriers to send its satellites to the space. Last September, Iran launched a satellite into space with a rocket built by the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
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The Ghased, a solid and fluid fuel rocket, was first inaugurated in 2020 by the Guard when it put a military satellite in the orbit.
The war in June killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including senior military commanders and nuclear scientist. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 in Israel.
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Winnipeg Free Press
11 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Chinese researchers suggest lasers and sabotage to counter Musk's Starlink satellites
ROME (AP) — Stealth submarines fitted with space-shooting lasers, supply-chain sabotage and custom-built attack satellites armed with ion thrusters. Those are just some of the strategies Chinese scientists have been developing to counter what Beijing sees as a potent threat: Elon Musk' s armada of Starlink communications satellites. Chinese government and military scientists, concerned about Starlink's potential use by adversaries in a military confrontation and for spying, have published dozens of papers in public journals that explore ways to hunt and destroy Musk's satellites, an Associated Press review found. Chinese researchers believe that Starlink — a vast constellation of low-orbit satellites that deliver cheap, fast and ubiquitous connectivity even in remote areas — poses a high risk to the Chinese government and its strategic interests. That fear has mostly been driven by the company's close ties to the U.S. intelligence and defense establishment, as well as its growing global footprint. 'As the United States integrates Starlink technology into military space assets to gain a strategic advantage over its adversaries, other countries increasingly perceive Starlink as a security threat in nuclear, space, and cyber domains,' wrote professors from China's National University of Defense Technology in a 2023 paper. Chinese researchers are not the only ones concerned about Starlink, which has a stranglehold on certain space-based communications. Some traditional U.S. allies are also questioning the wisdom of handing over core communications infrastructure — and a potential trove of data — to a company run by an unpredictable foreign businessman whose allegiances are not always clear. Apprehensions deepened after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine made clear the battlefield advantages Starlink satellites could convey and have been exacerbated by Musk's proliferating political interests. Musk pumped tens of millions of dollars into President Donald Trump's reelection effort and emerged, temporarily, as a key adviser and government official. As Musk toys with the idea of starting his own political party, he has also taken an increasing interest in European politics, using his influence to promote an array of hard-right and insurgent figures often at odds with establishment politicians. Musk left the Trump administration in May and within days his relationship with Trump publicly imploded in a feud on social media. SpaceX, the rocket launch and space-based communications company that Musk founded and that operates Starlink, remains inextricably linked with core U.S. government functions. It has won billions in contracts to provide launch services for NASA missions and military satellites, recuperate astronauts stranded at the International Space Station and build a network of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. Starlink's space dominance has sparked a global scramble to come up with viable alternatives. But its crushing first-mover advantage has given SpaceX near monopoly power, further complicating the currents of business, politics and national security that converge on Musk and his companies. Starlink dominates space Since its first launches in 2019, Starlink has come to account for about two-thirds of all active satellites, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who writes a newsletter tracking satellite launches. SpaceX operates more than 8,000 active satellites and eventually aims to deploy tens of thousands more. Beijing's tendency to view Starlink as tool of U.S. military power has sharpened its efforts to develop countermeasures — which, if deployed, could increase the risk of collateral damage to other customers as SpaceX expands its global footprint. The same satellites that pass over China also potentially serve Europe, Ukraine, the United States and other geographies as they continue their path around the earth. Starlink says it operates in more than 140 countries, and recently made inroads in Vietnam, Niger, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan. In June, Starlink also obtained a license to operate in India, overcoming national security concerns and powerful domestic telecom interests to crack open a tech-savvy market of nearly 1.5 billion people. On the company's own map of coverage, it has very few dead zones beyond those in North Korea, Iran and China. No other country or company is close to catching up with Starlink. Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has taken aim at rival Musk with Project Kuiper, which launched its first batch of internet satellites into orbit in April. So far Amazon has just 78 satellites in orbit, with 3,232 planned, according to McDowell, and London-based Eutelstat OneWeb has around 650 satellites in orbit, a fraction of the fleet it had initially planned. The European Union is spending billions to develop its own satellite array — called the IRIS2 initiative — but remains woefully behind. EU officials have had to lobby their own member states not to sign contracts with Starlink while it gets up and running. 'We are allies with the United States of America, but we need to have our strategic autonomy,' said Christophe Grudler, a French member of the European Parliament who led legislative work on IRIS2. 'The risk is not having our destiny in our own hands.' China has been public about its ambition to build its own version of Starlink to meet both domestic national security needs and compete with Starlink in foreign markets. In 2021, Beijing established the state-owned China SatNet company and tasked it with launching a megaconstellation with military capabilities, known as Guowang. In December, the company launched its first operational satellites, and now has 60 of a planned 13,000 in orbit, according to McDowell. Qianfan, a company backed by the Shanghai government, has launched 90 satellites out of some 15,000 planned. The Brazilian government in November announced a deal with Qianfan, after Musk had a scorching public fight with a Brazilian judge investigating X, who also froze Space X's bank accounts in the country. Qianfan is also targeting customers in Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan and Uzbekistan and has ambitions to expand across the African continent, according to a slide presented at a space industry conference last year and published by the China Space Monitor. Russia's invasion of Ukraine supercharges concerns Concerns about Starlink's supremacy were supercharged by Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war was a turning point in strategic thinking about Starlink and similar systems. Ukraine used the Starlink network to facilitate battlefield communications and power fighter and reconnaissance drones, providing a decisive ground-game advantage. At the same time, access to the satellites was initially controlled by a single man, Musk, who can — and did — interrupt critical services, refusing, for example, to extend coverage to support a Ukrainian counterattack in Russia-occupied Crimea. U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow after the full-scale invasion also curtailed the availability of Western technology in Russia, underscoring the geopolitical risks inherent in relying on foreign actors for access to critical infrastructure. 'Ukraine was a warning shot for the rest of us,' said Nitin Pai, co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution, a public policy research center based in Bangalore, India. 'For the last 20 years, we were quite aware of the fact that giving important government contracts to Chinese companies is risky because Chinese companies operate as appendages of the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, it's a risk because the Chinese Communist Party can use technology as a lever against you. Now it's no different with the Americans.' Nearly all of the 64 papers about Starlink reviewed by AP in Chinese journals were published after the conflict started. Assessing Starlink's capabilities and vulnerabilities Starlink's omnipresence and potential military applications have unnerved Beijing and spurred the nation's scientists to action. In paper after paper, researchers painstakingly assessed the capabilities and vulnerabilities of a network that they clearly perceive as menacing and strove to understand what China might learn — and emulate — from Musk's company as Beijing works to develop a similar satellite system. Though Starlink does not operate in China, Musk's satellites nonetheless can sweep over Chinese territory. Researchers from China's National Defense University in 2023 simulated Starlink's coverage of key geographies, including Beijing, Taiwan, and the polar regions, and determined that Starlink can achieve round-the-clock coverage of Beijing. 'The Starlink constellation coverage capacity of all regions in the world is improving steadily and in high speed,' they concluded. In another paper — this one published by the government-backed China Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team — researchers mapped out vulnerabilities in Starlink's supply chain. 'The company has more than 140 first-tier suppliers and a large number of second-tier and third-tier suppliers downstream,' they wrote in a 2023 paper. 'The supervision for cybersecurity is limited.' Engineers from the People's Liberation Army, in another 2023 paper, suggested creating a fleet of satellites to tail Starlink satellites, collecting signals and potentially using corrosive materials to damage their batteries or ion thrusters to interfere with their solar panels. Other Chinese academics have encouraged Beijing to use global regulations and diplomacy to contain Musk, even as the nation's engineers have continued to elaborate active countermeasures: Deploy small optical telescopes already in commercial production to monitor Starlink arrays. Concoct deep fakes to create fictitious targets. Shoot powerful lasers to burn Musk's equipment. Some U.S. analysts say Beijing's fears may be overblown, but such assessments appear to have done little to cool domestic debate. One Chinese paper was titled, simply: 'Watch out for that Starlink.' ___ Chen reported from Washington. ___ Contact AP's global investigative team at Investigative@ or
Toronto Star
12 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Photos show the cosmic calling of extraterrestrial enthusiasts at Indonesia's UFO Festival
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Winnipeg Free Press
14 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
First Australian-made rocket crashes after 14 seconds of flight in a failed attempt to reach orbit
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The first Australian -made rocket to attempt to reach orbit from the country's soil crashed after 14 seconds of flight on Wednesday. The rocket Eris, launched by Gilmour Space Technologies, was the first Australian-designed and manufactured orbital launch vehicle to lift off from the country and was designed to carry small satellites to orbit. It launched Wednesday morning local time in a test flight from a spaceport near the small town of Bowen in the north of Queensland state. In videos published by Australian news outlets, the 23-meter (75-foot) rocket appeared to clear the launch tower and hovered in the air before falling out of sight. Plumes of smoke were seen rising above the site. No injuries were reported. The company hailed the launch as a success in a statement posted to Facebook. A spokesperson said all four hybrid-propelled engines ignited and the maiden flight included 23 seconds of engine burn time and 14 seconds of flight. Gilmour Space Technologies had planned previous launches of the rocket, in May and earlier this month, but called off those operations because of technical issues and bad weather. CEO Adam Gilmour said in a statement he was pleased the rocket got off the launchpad. 'Of course I would have liked more flight time but happy with this,' he wrote on LinkedIn. Gilmour said in February that it was 'almost unheard of' for a private rocket company to successfully launch to orbit on its first attempt. The firm had earlier said it would consider the launch a success if the rocket left the ground. The launch site infrastructure 'remained intact,' the statement said. Mayor Ry Collins of the local Whitsunday Regional Council said the completed launch was a 'huge achievement' even though the vehicle didn't reach orbit. 'This is an important first step towards the giant leap of a future commercial space industry right here in our region,' he wrote on Facebook. Gilmour Space Technologies has private funders and was awarded a 5 million Australian dollar ($3.2 million) grant this month from the country's federal government for the development of the Eris rocket. It followed the firm's AU$52 million grant agreement with the government in 2023 to advance the development and commercialization of new space technologies in Australia. The country has been the site of hundreds of suborbital vehicle launches but there have only been two successful launches to orbit from Australia before, according to the aerospace news platform NASASpaceFlight. The maiden Eris test flight was the first orbital launch attempt from Australia in more than 50 years.
