The purpose of this review is the examine the evolution of space launch and exploration that has occurred in the public space. There are many satellites and other systems that are classified within their respective Country of Origin and their related information may be limited or not available on this dataset. The dataset has last been updated as of 5/1/2022 and provided by the Union of Concerned Scientists through https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database.
Space has been evolving and being considered the next highway of technology. As researchers, scientists, and engineers are finding the depletion and pollution of resources in their homeland being mined to the max, the vastness and unexplored space is being considered the place to spend time and resources for its limitless and unimaginable resources. With the advances of technology being made here on earth, we are starting to comfortable with reliable methods to get out into space. There are rockets being 3D printed, recycled through a big fishing net, and AI to set up for smooth landing back on Earth. With this, the commercial private sectors have been dipping their hand into the pot more and more often.
For us to be able to understand what is happening in this sector, we want to take a look into the history as it compares to current day to see the trends, where the investments are coming from, and the use cases for the technology in space.
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sats <- read_excel("UCS-Satellite-Database-5-1-2022.xls")## Warning: Expecting numeric in R1036 / R1036C18: got '1,500-1,900'## Warning: Expecting numeric in R1037 / R1037C18: got '1,500-1,900'Here we will look through the dataset to find some general patterns. We will also be able to create subsets and cleanup the data as necessary for any analysis. We will check for NA values and see how they relate to the data and is in need of being corrected for analysis.
# Initial Review
str(sats)## tibble [5,465 × 38] (S3: tbl_df/tbl/data.frame)
## $ Name of Satellite, Alternate Names: chr [1:5465] "1HOPSAT-TD (1st-generation High Optical Performance Satellite)" "Aalto-1" "AAUSat-4" "ABS-2 (Koreasat-8, ST-3)" ...
## $ Current Official Name of Satellite: chr [1:5465] "1HOPSAT-TD" "Aalto-1" "AAUSat-4" "ABS-2" ...
## $ Country/Org of UN Registry : chr [1:5465] "NR" "Finland" "Denmark" "NR" ...
## $ Country of Operator/Owner : chr [1:5465] "USA" "Finland" "Denmark" "Multinational" ...
## $ Operator/Owner : chr [1:5465] "Hera Systems" "Aalto University" "University of Aalborg" "Asia Broadcast Satellite Ltd." ...
## $ Users : chr [1:5465] "Commercial" "Civil" "Civil" "Commercial" ...
## $ Purpose : chr [1:5465] "Earth Observation" "Technology Development" "Earth Observation" "Communications" ...
## $ Detailed Purpose : chr [1:5465] "Infrared Imaging" NA "Automatic Identification System (AIS)" NA ...
## $ Class of Orbit : chr [1:5465] "LEO" "LEO" "LEO" "GEO" ...
## $ Type of Orbit : chr [1:5465] "Non-Polar Inclined" "Sun-Synchronous" "Sun-Synchronous" NA ...
## $ Longitude of GEO (degrees) : chr [1:5465] "0" "0" "0" "75" ...
## $ Perigee (km) : num [1:5465] 566 497 442 35778 35700 ...
## $ Apogee (km) : num [1:5465] 576 517 687 35793 35700 ...
## $ Eccentricity : num [1:5465] 0.00072 0.001454 0.017665 0.000178 0 ...
## $ Inclination (degrees) : num [1:5465] 36.9 97.45 98.2 0.08 0 ...
## $ Period (minutes) : num [1:5465] 96.1 94.7 95.9 1436 1436.1 ...
## $ Launch Mass (kg.) : num [1:5465] 22 4.5 1 6330 1800 ...
## $ Dry Mass (kg.) : num [1:5465] NA NA NA NA NA NA 1700 1730 NA NA ...
## $ Power (watts) : chr [1:5465] NA "4.5" NA "16000" ...
## $ Date of Launch : POSIXct[1:5465], format: "2019-12-11" "2017-06-23" ...
## $ Expected Lifetime (yrs.) : num [1:5465] 0.5 2 NA 15 15 15 12 15 NA NA ...
## $ Contractor : chr [1:5465] "Hera Systems" "Aalto University" "University of Aalborg" "Space Systems/Loral" ...
## $ Country of Contractor : chr [1:5465] "USA" "Finland" "Denmark" "USA" ...
## $ Launch Site : chr [1:5465] "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" "Guiana Space Center" "Guiana Space Center" ...
## $ Launch Location : chr [1:5465] "India" "India" "French Guiana" "French Guiana" ...
## $ Launch Vehicle : chr [1:5465] "PSLV" "PSLV" "Soyuz-2.1a" "Ariane 5 ECA" ...
## $ COSPAR Number : chr [1:5465] "2019-089H" "2017-036L" "2016-025E" "2014-006A" ...
## $ NORAD Number : chr [1:5465] "44859" "42775" "41460" "39508" ...
## $ Comments : chr [1:5465] "Pathfinder for planned earth observation constellation." "Technology development and education." "Carries AIS system." "32 C-band, 51 Ku-band, and 6 Ka-band transponders. $214 million lawsuit for bad beam." ...
## $ Comments2 : chr [1:5465] NA NA NA NA ...
## $ Source Used for Orbital Data : chr [1:5465] "JMSatcat/3_20" "JMSatcat/10_17" "Space50" "ZARYA" ...
## $ Source : chr [1:5465] "https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/12/11/indias-50th-pslv-lifts-off-with-satellites-from-five-nations/" "https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/a/aalto-1" "http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/04/26/soyuz-blasts-off-with-environmental-satellite-general-relativity-probe/" "http://www.absatellite.net/satellite-fleet/?sat=abs6" ...
## $ Source2 : chr [1:5465] "https://www.herasys.com/" NA NA NA ...
## $ Source3 : chr [1:5465] NA "http://www.planet4589.org/space/log/satcat.txt" "http://space50.org/objekt.php?mot=2016-025E&jazyk=pp_en" "http://www.zarya.info/Diaries/Launches/Launches.php?year=2014" ...
## $ Source4 : chr [1:5465] NA NA NA "http://www.absatellite.net/2010/10/13/asia-broadcast-satellite-signs-abs-2-satellite-manufacturing-contract-wit"| __truncated__ ...
## $ Source5 : chr [1:5465] NA NA NA "http://www.spacenews.com/article/satellite-telecom/42218abs-files-214-million-insurance-claim-for-bad-satellite-beam" ...
## $ Source6 : chr [1:5465] NA NA NA NA ...
## $ Source7 : chr [1:5465] NA NA NA NA ...colSums(is.na(sats))## Name of Satellite, Alternate Names Current Official Name of Satellite
## 0 0
## Country/Org of UN Registry Country of Operator/Owner
## 497 0
## Operator/Owner Users
## 0 0
## Purpose Detailed Purpose
## 0 4325
## Class of Orbit Type of Orbit
## 0 622
## Longitude of GEO (degrees) Perigee (km)
## 1 1
## Apogee (km) Eccentricity
## 0 0
## Inclination (degrees) Period (minutes)
## 0 16
## Launch Mass (kg.) Dry Mass (kg.)
## 240 5024
## Power (watts) Date of Launch
## 4885 0
## Expected Lifetime (yrs.) Contractor
## 1866 2
## Country of Contractor Launch Site
## 2 1
## Launch Location Launch Vehicle
## 0 0
## COSPAR Number NORAD Number
## 0 0
## Comments Comments2
## 3655 5462
## Source Used for Orbital Data Source
## 193 2196
## Source2 Source3
## 5222 4057
## Source4 Source5
## 4808 5213
## Source6 Source7
## 5395 5445We wont be using any of the comments or source columns so we will filter that out.
satsub <- select(sats, -`Comments`, -`Comments2`, -`Source Used for Orbital Data`, -`Source`, -`Source2`, -`Source3`, -`Source4`, -`Source5`, -`Source6`, -`Source7`)
str(satsub)## tibble [5,465 × 28] (S3: tbl_df/tbl/data.frame)
## $ Name of Satellite, Alternate Names: chr [1:5465] "1HOPSAT-TD (1st-generation High Optical Performance Satellite)" "Aalto-1" "AAUSat-4" "ABS-2 (Koreasat-8, ST-3)" ...
## $ Current Official Name of Satellite: chr [1:5465] "1HOPSAT-TD" "Aalto-1" "AAUSat-4" "ABS-2" ...
## $ Country/Org of UN Registry : chr [1:5465] "NR" "Finland" "Denmark" "NR" ...
## $ Country of Operator/Owner : chr [1:5465] "USA" "Finland" "Denmark" "Multinational" ...
## $ Operator/Owner : chr [1:5465] "Hera Systems" "Aalto University" "University of Aalborg" "Asia Broadcast Satellite Ltd." ...
## $ Users : chr [1:5465] "Commercial" "Civil" "Civil" "Commercial" ...
## $ Purpose : chr [1:5465] "Earth Observation" "Technology Development" "Earth Observation" "Communications" ...
## $ Detailed Purpose : chr [1:5465] "Infrared Imaging" NA "Automatic Identification System (AIS)" NA ...
## $ Class of Orbit : chr [1:5465] "LEO" "LEO" "LEO" "GEO" ...
## $ Type of Orbit : chr [1:5465] "Non-Polar Inclined" "Sun-Synchronous" "Sun-Synchronous" NA ...
## $ Longitude of GEO (degrees) : chr [1:5465] "0" "0" "0" "75" ...
## $ Perigee (km) : num [1:5465] 566 497 442 35778 35700 ...
## $ Apogee (km) : num [1:5465] 576 517 687 35793 35700 ...
## $ Eccentricity : num [1:5465] 0.00072 0.001454 0.017665 0.000178 0 ...
## $ Inclination (degrees) : num [1:5465] 36.9 97.45 98.2 0.08 0 ...
## $ Period (minutes) : num [1:5465] 96.1 94.7 95.9 1436 1436.1 ...
## $ Launch Mass (kg.) : num [1:5465] 22 4.5 1 6330 1800 ...
## $ Dry Mass (kg.) : num [1:5465] NA NA NA NA NA NA 1700 1730 NA NA ...
## $ Power (watts) : chr [1:5465] NA "4.5" NA "16000" ...
## $ Date of Launch : POSIXct[1:5465], format: "2019-12-11" "2017-06-23" ...
## $ Expected Lifetime (yrs.) : num [1:5465] 0.5 2 NA 15 15 15 12 15 NA NA ...
## $ Contractor : chr [1:5465] "Hera Systems" "Aalto University" "University of Aalborg" "Space Systems/Loral" ...
## $ Country of Contractor : chr [1:5465] "USA" "Finland" "Denmark" "USA" ...
## $ Launch Site : chr [1:5465] "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" "Guiana Space Center" "Guiana Space Center" ...
## $ Launch Location : chr [1:5465] "India" "India" "French Guiana" "French Guiana" ...
## $ Launch Vehicle : chr [1:5465] "PSLV" "PSLV" "Soyuz-2.1a" "Ariane 5 ECA" ...
## $ COSPAR Number : chr [1:5465] "2019-089H" "2017-036L" "2016-025E" "2014-006A" ...
## $ NORAD Number : chr [1:5465] "44859" "42775" "41460" "39508" ...satsub %>%
summary()## Name of Satellite, Alternate Names Current Official Name of Satellite
## Length:5465 Length:5465
## Class :character Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character
##
##
##
##
## Country/Org of UN Registry Country of Operator/Owner Operator/Owner
## Length:5465 Length:5465 Length:5465
## Class :character Class :character Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character Mode :character
##
##
##
##
## Users Purpose Detailed Purpose Class of Orbit
## Length:5465 Length:5465 Length:5465 Length:5465
## Class :character Class :character Class :character Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character Mode :character Mode :character
##
##
##
##
## Type of Orbit Longitude of GEO (degrees) Perigee (km)
## Length:5465 Length:5465 Min. : 150.0
## Class :character Class :character 1st Qu.: 496.0
## Mode :character Mode :character Median : 548.0
## Mean : 4712.5
## 3rd Qu.: 704.2
## Max. :62200.0
## NA's :1
## Apogee (km) Eccentricity Inclination (degrees) Period (minutes)
## Min. : 49 Min. : -0.0334 Min. : 0.00 Min. : 9.0
## 1st Qu.: 514 1st Qu.: 0.0002 1st Qu.: 53.00 1st Qu.: 94.5
## Median : 561 Median : 0.0007 Median : 53.20 Median : 95.6
## Mean : 5388 Mean : 0.3760 Mean : 63.02 Mean : 265.0
## 3rd Qu.: 791 3rd Qu.: 0.0012 3rd Qu.: 97.30 3rd Qu.: 97.4
## Max. :330000 Max. :511.0000 Max. :143.40 Max. :11520.0
## NA's :16
## Launch Mass (kg.) Dry Mass (kg.) Power (watts)
## Min. : 0.5 Min. : 1 Length:5465
## 1st Qu.: 120.0 1st Qu.: 369 Class :character
## Median : 260.0 Median : 825 Mode :character
## Mean : 746.3 Mean : 1331
## 3rd Qu.: 260.0 3rd Qu.: 1900
## Max. :22500.0 Max. :15500
## NA's :240 NA's :5024
## Date of Launch Expected Lifetime (yrs.) Contractor
## Min. :1974-11-15 00:00:00.0 Min. : 0.25 Length:5465
## 1st Qu.:2018-01-11 00:00:00.0 1st Qu.: 4.00 Class :character
## Median :2020-09-14 00:00:00.0 Median : 4.00 Mode :character
## Mean :2018-08-25 08:44:21.2 Mean : 5.91
## 3rd Qu.:2021-05-26 00:00:00.0 3rd Qu.: 5.00
## Max. :2022-04-29 00:00:00.0 Max. :30.00
## NA's :1866
## Country of Contractor Launch Site Launch Location Launch Vehicle
## Length:5465 Length:5465 Length:5465 Length:5465
## Class :character Class :character Class :character Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character Mode :character Mode :character
##
##
##
##
## COSPAR Number NORAD Number
## Length:5465 Length:5465
## Class :character Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character
##
##
##
## mean(satsub$'Period (minutes)', na.rm = TRUE)## [1] 264.9652satsub$launchYear <- format(satsub$'Date of Launch', format = "%Y")plot1 <- ggplot(satsub, aes(x = launchYear)) +
labs(title = "Overall Trend of Launches") +
geom_bar() +
xlab("Launch Year") +
ylab("Count of Launches") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45))
plot1 <- ggplotly(plot1)
plot1Taking a quick look through the data, we can see there is a significant jump in 2020 and 2021.
countryofinterest <- filter(satsub, `Country/Org of UN Registry` %in% c("Russia","USA","Japan","China","United Kingdom"), launchYear >= 2000)
plot2 <- ggplot(countryofinterest, aes(x = launchYear, color = `Country/Org of UN Registry`, fill = `Country/Org of UN Registry`, alpha = 0.5)) +
labs(title = "Count of Launches since 2000 by Top 5 Countries") +
geom_bar() +
xlab("Year of Launch") +
ylab("Count of Launches") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45))
plot2 <- ggplotly(plot2)
plot2Here we see that there is a massive increase in 2020 and 2021 that is bringing the counts in the thousands is being done through the USA. Is there a specific group that we can look to to associate the jump?
year2021 <- filter(countryofinterest, `Country/Org of UN Registry` %in% "USA", launchYear == 2020 | launchYear == 2021)
table(year2021$`Operator/Owner`)##
## Aerospace Corporation
## 3
## ANDESITE - Boston University
## 1
## Astro Digital
## 1
## California Polytechnic Institute
## 1
## Capella Space
## 4
## Care Weather Technologies
## 1
## COSMIAC (Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations & Applications Center)
## 1
## Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
## 2
## Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Science, UC Boulder/National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
## 1
## Department of Defense/Army Space and Missile Defense Command
## 1
## Department of Defense/Missile Defense Agency
## 2
## DoD/US Air Force
## 3
## HawkEye 360
## 3
## Intelsat S.A.
## 1
## Los Alamos National Laboratory
## 1
## Massachusetts Institute of Technology
## 1
## NASA/Carnegie Mellon University
## 3
## National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
## 1
## National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/US Geological Survey
## 1
## National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
## 10
## National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)/US Air Force
## 3
## Planet Labs, Inc.
## 86
## PlanetiQ
## 1
## PointView Tech
## 1
## Rocket Labs
## 1
## Space Logistics LLC
## 1
## SpaceX
## 1599
## Spire Global Inc.
## 22
## Swarm Technologies
## 36
## U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command
## 2
## University of Louisiana at Lafayette
## 1
## University of South Florida, Institute of Applied Engineering (IAE).
## 3
## University of Texas at El Paso
## 1
## US Air Force
## 2
## US Air Force Academy
## 1
## US Space Force
## 1
## Utah State University
## 1plot3 <- ggplot(year2021, aes(x = `Operator/Owner`)) +
labs(title = "All Launches in 2020 and 2021 in USA") +
geom_bar() +
xlab("Operator or Owner") +
ylab("Count of Launches") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45))
plot3 <- ggplotly(plot3)
# plot3This is caused by Elon Musk launching Starlink which pushed many cube satellites to be launched for commercial services. We will remove Starlink to review all other transactions.
countryofinterest2 <- filter(countryofinterest, `Operator/Owner` != "SpaceX")
plot4 <- ggplot(countryofinterest2, aes(x = launchYear, color = `Country/Org of UN Registry`)) +
# removed fill color, I like this coloration better for a representation.
labs(title = "Count of Launches since 2000 by Top 5 Countries") +
geom_bar() +
xlab("Year of Launch") +
ylab("Count of Launches") +
theme_minimal() +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45))
plot4 <- ggplotly(plot4)
plot4With an significant increase in the public sphere for outer space, we want to take an initial look at how space has been evolving throughout history. Our initial focus will be on current satellites and similar systems. The dataset has been provided by UCS at https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database. The database lists over 5000 satellites that has been last updated on May 1, 2022. The initial purpose of this research it take a look at how the trends are moving as technology and the private/commercial sector has invested heavily into space.
2014 was the first year where more than 100 satellites were pushed into space. Since then, we have never dropped below and this became the standard. 1974 was the first reported satellite in this data set and it took 40 years for us to be able to get to that 100 mark. It has only taken 3 years before we got into 2017 to be able to double this. Finally, with SpaceX and Elon Musk being huge believers in space, 2020 was the first year to get 1000+ satellites into space.
We also found that the top 5 players into this environment is USA, China, United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia. China has been increasing their spy technologies as well as Anti-satellite (ASAT) technologies significantly and has even launched their own version of the ISS called the Tiangong Space Station. Seeing the trends, the expectations are that China will significantly push out more space instruments in the next coming years, though, whether they are public or classified is yet to be seen.
China and Russia both, have focused their efforts to use satellites for development of kinetic ASAT technologies. the US has recently pushed into policy to not allow US to develop any kinetic ASAT, and to focus their efforts into more non-kinetic war games. The US has stated their main concern is to protect the space from man-made micrometeorites which is caused by kinetic ASAT missiles and tests.
From the graphs, we can see that the United Kingdom also has a massive push for satellites, but they are in a similar boat with SpaceX in that they are pushing out a chain of satellites for commercial purposes. Excluding the One Web network, most of the UK’s efforts are for communication development.
To speak on an example of what this significant increase in space technology has allowed, we can look at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab’s latest project DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) that used a variety of satellites and sensors to track a vehicle before and after it made intentional impact with a meteorite for the purposes of redirecting its trajectory.
As this sector continues to boom in growth, I hope that this information brings more people interested in the research and development of tools, technology, and other science instruments for space.