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Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space . droop again that thefinal order of business for the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt is now live . I ’ll be pushing this case for the next few hebdomad , given that we ’re just a bit over a calendar month aside ! We ’d love for you to join us .
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Story of the week
Imagine a future tense where the diurnal cycle per second , at least in some constituent of the reality , is adjustable . Where humans are no longer beholden to the 24 - hour pattern of daylight and iniquity . Instead of being constrain by the strong-arm reality that constrains the sun to its daily cycle , imagine a futurity where the sun can be turned on and off like a torch .
This is the succeeding thatReflect Orbitalimagines is possible . The startup is developing satellite that would deploy large mirrors to exactly ruminate sunshine onto specific point on the ground . mob of satellites in sun - synchronous orbit would follow the eradicator , or the ancestry that separates dark and Clarence Day , furnish extra sun before dawn and after dusk .
Their program generated a lot of ire on the cyberspace . But some of that attending was positive — including from Sequoia investor Shaun Maguire .
Longshot of the week
Why use a rocket when you could use a giant , miles - prospicient “ heavy weapon ” rather ?
That ’s the head posed byLongshot Space , a company that ’s completely rethink how to send mass to revolve . The company is developing a kinetic launch system that will gradually accelerate payload to hypersonic amphetamine before found them into range . While Longshot ’s full - weighing machine scheme will take up a peck of space , the inauguration is betting it can achieve very , very low costs to orb compare to a arugula — as low as $ 10 per kilo , which is a staggering reduction compare to the $ 6,000 per kg price of a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket .
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The fellowship raised a$1.5 million pre - seed round in April 2023 ; now , almost 18 month after , Longshot close a little over $ 5 million in combined speculation funding and non - dilutive financing from the U.S. Air Force ’s TACFI broadcast . The new capital will be used to build a monumental , 500 - metre - long gas in the Nevada desert to press 100 - kilogram warhead to Mach 5 .
This week in space history
This week we ’re celebrating two major achievements in space chronicle : the parentage of NASA and the launching of Sputnik-1 . Both events have change the course of action of space exploration — the former , by establishing the organization that would help assure America ’s place as the world ’s primary quad power ; and the latter , by arguably kicking off the Cold War - era outer space raceway between the USA and the USSR .
Notably , the Russians launch Sputnik on October 4 , 1957 , and less than a twelvemonth later Congress officially launch NASA . America was shocked by the USSR ’s succeeder in the outer space land . President Eisenhowertried to save face , calling the satellite a “ useless hunk of atomic number 26 . ” But he alsodedicated even more fundingfor the domesticated quad programme to ensure we caught up .
Here ’s NASA : “ Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October , the U.S. Defense Department answer to the political furore by O.K. financing for another U.S. satellite project . As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard , Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began oeuvre on theExplorerproject . … The Sputnik launch also led straightaway to the macrocosm of National Aeronautics and Space Administration . ”
