2014


2014 – Iranian Suborbital

An example of a country using suborbital rockets for testing is Iran, which sent its second monkey into space in December 2013. Lifted aboard a Kavoshgar-e Pazhuhesh sounding rocket to an altitude of 120 kilometers (75 miles), the capsule containing the monkey parachuted safely back to Earth. The monkey, capsule, and rocket are part of Iran’s efforts to send a human into space by 2024.

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2014 – Military Communications

Global, dedicated, and secure communications networks are vital to governments, militaries, and agencies around the world. Increased demand for capacity—particularly secure connectivity using non-commercial frequency bands—continued to drive deployment of dedicated military communications satellite systems. The U.S. military bought significant capacity from commercial operators such as Intelsat and SES in 2014. However, the way the military buys the bandwidth has been criticized by commercial satellite communications services as expensive and outdated.

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2014 – Military Reconnaissance

While many remote-sensing and Earth observation satellites can be used for reconnaissance or other types of intelligence-gathering, military-specific and government-run satellites and sensor payloads are guided by very different mission requirements and laws than their commercial counterparts. There are several intelligence disciplines, or INTs, in which reconnaissance satellites are used to gain information: imagery intelligence (IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT).

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2014 – Meteorology

Weather satellites are a major segment of remote sensing satellites, using a mix of electro-optical, atmospheric, gravimetric, SAR, and other sensor payloads to detect fully formed weather systems as well as precursor conditions. Most weather satellites are in GEO or polar LEO orbits and have traditionally been operated by national governments for near-term weather forecasting and long-term climate modeling.

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2014 – Land Imaging

Collectively, land-imaging satellites are systems used to observe, monitor, and track changes and developments on the Earth’s surface using a variety of optical or electronic imaging capabilities. Earth observation satellites may be distinguished from each other on the basis of spatial resolution—the level of detail their images are capable of recording. Another distinction is the sensor type, such as optical cameras, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), or various types of infrared and electronic imaging.

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2014 – Satellite Orbits

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a total of 1,235 satellites were active at the end of 2014. These satellites are mostly located in low Earth orbit (LEO) between 200 and 2,000 kilometers (124–1,242 miles) of altitude. LEO is home to 655 active satellites, or 53% of the total.

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2014 – Space Insurance

Infrastructure support industries include services such as space insurance and space-related research and development. The global space insurance industry saw continued profitability in 2014, although not to the same extent as in recent years. Space insurance premiums at the end of 2014 were estimated to total $## million, against which $## million in claims were filed. The countries with the greatest number of launches were also the ones who faced a few costly accidents. The Antares launch failure and destruction of its Cygnus capsule was said to cost only about $## million in insurance losses.

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2014 – Commercial Human Spaceflight

Since 2011, NASA has relied on contracts with the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, to send American astronauts to the ISS. The price for each seat on a Russian capsule rose to $## million in 2014, up $# million from 2013. NASA had earlier decided that the milestone-driven Commercial Crew Program, based in part on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program, would help speed the goal of advancing development of a commercially operated crew transportation system capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS. In November 2013, NASA issued the final Request for Proposals for Phase 2 of the Commercial Crew Program, called the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract.

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