Flying 260 miles above the earth, it can provide images of objects as small as 3 feet wide.
The Falcon dropped the Dragon off in an elliptical path running from 197km above the Earth out to 328km.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are around 1, 000 satellites in operation above the Earth's atmosphere.
Signals received from satellites orbiting 22, 000km (13, 670miles) above the earth are then used to calculate a more accurate measurement.
Arrow 3 detects an incoming missile, intercepts it and destroys it with a second missile above the earth's atmosphere.
Florida time to put the unmanned capsule into the correct orbit for a historic linkup 240 miles above the Earth.
Sir Richard's intention is to use the spaceship to carry fare-paying passengers on short pleasure rides above the Earth's atmosphere.
The booster ejects the satellite a few hundred kilometres above the Earth.
The rocket's ascent took the lab out over the Pacific, and on a path to an orbit some 350km above the Earth.
The space station is a mere 380km (240 miles) above the Earth.
Launched in 2003, ICESat can measure changes in elevation as small as 1.5cm (0.6ins) from its orbit 645km (400 miles) above the Earth.
Using a joystick, a geographer can float above the Earth, then zoom in on the bottom of Lake Tahoe, with no loss of detail.
The vehicles reach about 50 miles above the Earth, so they have no need to clear the gravitational field and require much less fuel.
Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner wore several of the devices when he made his record-breaking supersonic freefall from 39 kilometers above the earth in October.
FORBES: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire
The jet stream consists of strong winds about 10 miles above the Earth that control storm paths and mark boundaries between cooler and warmer air.
This is because it takes years for the compounds to reach the ozone layer's home in the stratosphere, 15-50 kilometres (10-30 miles) above the earth.
After the capsule hooks up with the station 240 miles above the earth, astronauts plan to retrieve about 1, 000 pounds of provisions, including food and clothes.
Yet Inmarsat's birds cover almost the entire world: They fly in geosynchronous orbit (GEOs, as they're known) 36, 000 kilometers above the earth and thus have large footprints.
But customers of Gilat Satellite Networks of Israel are already buying fixed phones tied to geostationary satellites (which hover 38, 000 kilometers above the earth, versus 1, 350 kilometers for Globalstar).
This concept - for those not familiar with it - is for a re-usable spaceplane that could put up to 15 tonnes into an orbit several hundred km above the Earth.
The flight, perhaps climbing to around 5, 000 miles above the earth, is intended to test the capsule's emergency launch-abort system, as well other systems, and Orion's protection against damage from micro-meteorites.
They say there is particular concern over the very long-lived northern low pressure zone of circumpolar winds, called a vortex, found at between 13 and 34 km (8 and 21 miles) above the Earth's surface.
Unfortunately, the earth's circumference at the equator is almost 25, 000 miles, so when we try to model the entire earth, and go up into the mesosphere (about 25 to 50 miles above the earth) the picture gets fuzzier.
He explained that ground-based radars are able to track objects of about 10cm (3.9 inches) and sometimes smaller, depending on altitude above the earth, while other sensors can detect particles down to about 5mm (0.2 inches) in low earth orbit.
The rocket was intended to lift the satellite into an orbit 35, 696 kilometers above the earth, but during its final burn, the upper stage engine shut down four minutes early, and the satellite was released into too low of an orbit.
By studying these clouds from every angle and at every point in their life cycle, researchers hope to learn more about how these storms, which can drive air more than 13km above the Earth's surface, will contribute to climate change in a warming environment.
The images from the Hubble, which has a clear view of the cosmos from its orbit above the Earth's turbulent atmosphere, will enable astronomers to gain a better understanding of black holes and the effect they have on material captured in their gravitational trap.
The data, from NASA's TIMED mission, show that Earth's thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth's surface) "responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle, " Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
By launching closer to the equator, the rocket receives a bigger boost from the Earth's rotation, meaning it can lift nearly double the mass of a normal Baikonur payload - a maximum of three tonnes, as opposed to 1.7 tonnes, into a geosynchronous orbit 36, 000km above the Earth.
For GPS, this is an enormous issue because it turns out that the clocks on the satellites drift by almost 40, 000 nanoseconds per day relative to the clocks on the ground because they are high above the earth's surface (and therefore in a weaker gravitational field) and are moving fast relative to the ground.
应用推荐