Ed Lu @astroEdLu

Finding a million asteroids! b612foundation.org Pale Blue Dot Joined January 2012

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𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN

2 days ago

The extinction of the dinosaurs is technically the highest ratio of birds killed with one stone.

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Asteroid day was supposed to be about the potential threat of asteroids and comets to earth. But this weekend at the Schweikart prize made me realize that the space economy plans mean we need to include assets beyond the earth in planetary defense. For years we’ve been looking at bodies that are large enough to penetrate the atmosphere and reach the surface with enough energy to cause damage. Those are rare, but once found predictable and even possible to avert. But as humanity moves more assets into orbit the threat model changes, small particles can impact the LEO economy, meteor streams may need to be incorporated into operational considerations for constellations. Threats that would miss the planet narrowly can now be considered a potential threat to assets in space. Furthermore, using something like DART to divert an asteroid generates a meteor stream that will pass close to the earth.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 days ago

My wife and I watched Armageddon in celebration of Asteroid Day. It's a fun movie but a reminder to never get your physics from Hollywood. As someone who actually works on protecting Earth from asteroids, I wish I had a dollar for every reporter who thinks their Bruce Willis joke is original, it could fund a real mission!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

4 days ago

@OmarJPimentel Thanks for the good word!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

a week ago

@DJSnM Congratulations on another aviation milestone. There are many more, and the learning is never complete!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

a week ago

The Chinese spaceplane released a small satellite.

LeoLabs @LeoLabs_Space

2 weeks ago

At 02:30 UTC on 22 June 2026, LeoLabs detected an unknown object in the vicinity of the Chinese Shenlong reusable spaceplane. This object did not correlate to any other object in our catalog. It was first observed by our Tracker radar in New Zealand.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 weeks ago

@planet4589 @Robotbeat @LeoLabs_Space There is definitely more uncertainty for non-cooperative objects (i.e. not transmitting) in cislunar space than in Earth orbit. Our orbit knowledge of Earth orbiting objects is quite precise.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 weeks ago

Fixed radars are the first target in a conflict. Keeping situational awareness requires mobile deployable sensors.

SpaceNews @SpaceNews_Inc

3 weeks ago

LeoLabs deploys mobile space-tracking radar in Indo-Pacific spacenews.com/leolabs-deploy…

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

a month ago

@JeffBezos Yes, but everyone should have some stake in the efficient use of our taxes. So everyone should pay something (even if small) so they have an incentive to vote for improving our system.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

a month ago

Our new ephemeris propagation service is now available at b612.ai/adam-platform/…

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

a month ago

If you need to propagate many state vectors and predict the sky position, magnitude, rates etc for an object in space, the @b612foundation can help you.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

2 months ago

@DJSnM Sounds like a business opportunity to me! Perhaps an Android Auto or Apple Car Play app from the phone?

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

2 months ago

This incident is the reason for the rule that in NASA T-38s we were not allowed to do circle to land approaches in actual instrument conditions. We could practice them in good weather, but they are challenging because they are flown substantially lower than the usual traffic pattern altitude, and because of the high speeds (240 knots for gear and flaps, roughly 165 knots on final)

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

@DJSnM Yes"fun" in the "not fun" sense of the word!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

The Shuttle simulator had no way to simulate the g forces, but the Russians had a simulator in a huge centrifuge. So if you screwed up and did a 9 g reentry, you actually had the pleasure of feeling that in the centrifuge. Good times!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

Parachute opening is a wild ride!

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

If you weren't careful about how steep your skip was, you could pay a big penalty in terms of g forces.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

Skipping off the atmosphere can cause your next entry into the atmosphere quite steep, which means very high g forces.

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Ed Lu @astroEdLu

3 months ago

If you come in too steep and have your lift vector pointed up, you can "skip" off the atmosphere and climb back upwards into very thin atmosphere which if you are not careful can put you into thin enough air so you have very little steering ability.