According to the US government, the Russian government is developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads. Should the Kremlin acquire this capability, it could destroy key parts of the civilian satellite infrastructure by detonating a single nuclear weapon in low Earth...

This research provides a comprehensive comparison of the financial, educational, and socio-spatial considerations in establishing State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) satellite campuses versus enhancing support mechanisms for existing SUCs in the Philippines. It highlights their critical role...

Greater Cairo (GC) is the seventh-largest metropolitan city globally. In recent decades, GC has witnessed massive urban expansion, which has yet to be empirically measured or characterized. This research seeks to explore the patterns of urban growth and changes in urban form in GC from 1973 to...

Inequality between ethnic groups has been shown to be negatively related to GDP, but research on its effect on contemporary economic growth is limited by the availability of comparable data. We compile a novel and comprehensive dataset of harmonized Gini indices on ethnic inequality for...

Private companies are launching more rockets and satellites into space than ever before, increasing the amount of space assets and infrastructure for both civilian and military use. While these dual-use technologies, such as satellite communications, provide a wide range of essential services,...

Nighttime lights (NTL) data are widely recognized as a useful proxy for monitoring national, subnational, and supranational economic activity. These data offer advantages over traditional economic indicators such as GDP, including greater spatial granularity, timeliness, lower cost, and...

Prioritizing populations most in need of social assistance is an important policy decision. In the Eastern Caribbean, social assistance targeting is constrained by limited data and the need for rapid support in times of large economic and natural disaster shocks. We leverage recent advances in...

This paper exploits daily infrared images taken from satellites to track economic activity in advanced and emerging countries. We first develop a framework to read, clean, and exploit satellite images. Our algorithm uses the laws of physics (Planck's law) and machine learning to detect the heat...

The standard approach to 'nowcast' disaster impacts, which relies on risk models, does not typically account for the compounding impact of various hazard phenomena (e.g., wind and rainfall associated with tropical storms). The alternative, traditionally, has been a team of experts sent to the...

Are there too many satellites in Low Earth Orbit, or too few? Why not use a market mechanism such as space launch auctions or orbit auctions to answer this question? This paper contributes to the literature on outer space governance by proposing a novel method of outer space governance: orbit...

In 1975, Margaret Hambrecht Douglas-Hamilton cautioned that “whenever a creditor contemplates taking a hand in the management of a financially troubled debtor, it should think of its deeper pockets and keep its hands there.” Her prescient remark went unheeded. As a result, ‘lender...

Nightlight is used as a proxy for economic activity at the subnational level. Two types of nightlight data are mainly available- Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), available from 1992-2013, and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), available from 2012. In this study,...

Each year, wildfires destroy larger areas of Spain, threatening numerous ecosystems. Humans cause 90% of them (negligence or provoked) and the behaviour of individuals is unpredictable. However, atmospheric and environmental variables affect the spread of wildfires, and they can be analysed by...

This study introduced a new approach for monitoring regional development by applying satellite data with machine learning algorithms. Satellite data that represent physical features and environmental factors were obtained by developing a web-based application on the Google Earth Engine platform....

The objectives of this study - Europe by Satellite - study on editorial policy - were to provide the European Commission's Audiovisual Service with the following: 1. A better view on the use of Europe by Satellite. 2. A better understanding of who uses the service, how they use it, and to which...

This analysis applies a regression discontinuity approach combined with remote sensing data to measure the productivity impacts linked to a fruit-fly eradication program, implemented in Peru. For this purpose, satellite imagery was used to estimate a vegetation index over a 10-year span for a...

Pakistan is a developing country with more than a quarter of its population living under the poverty line. Data relating to the socioeconomic conditions of the population is scarce and sporadic. Government, NGOs, and other international organizations perform door-to-door surveys to collect data,...

Satellite communication is integral to Digital India, enabling ubiquitous broadband for the uncovered population and supporting satellite TV, the dominant source of infotainment. An enabling policy environment would help increase the market share of Indian satellite service providers from the...

What would it mean for people to make outer space better rather than worse? Earth-based intuitions about the relationship between humans and the environment often assume that humans are a source of degradation and pollution, and that the best thing humans can do is to leave the environment alone...

Roads are vital to support the transportation of people, goods, and services, among others. Toyield their optimal socioeconomic impact, proper maintenance of existing roads is required;however, this is typically underfunded. Since detecting road quality is both labor and capitalintensive,...

This study presents a gender-specific assessment of medium-term disaster recovery following a series of earthquakes in Indonesia’s Aceh Province on 7 December 2016. For this assessment, we combine the village-level nighttime radiance data obtained from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer...

The satellite communications industry is in the midst of a paradigm shift, as the cost of building infrastructure for low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, which had previously served as a barrier to entry in the satellite communications services market, is falling. Such satellites provide...

Space technology keeps innovating and giving us the benefit to make our life easier, including satellite banking. However, BRI become the first bank that own satellite and claims it could improve efficiency. Therefore, this research aims to look at the efficiency of selected banks in Indonesia...

Aim: The issue of space debris (or space junk) is an important aspect of the sustainability of space. If not properly managed, the accumulation of space debris could make some orbital paths too dangerous to use, potentially limiting our ability to explore and utilize space. This study aims to...

Starlink primarily focuses on delivering high-speed, low-latency broadband Internet in remote and rural locations globally. This study aims to investigate the Starlink satellite project's impact on the Internet provider service in emerging economies. A quantitative approach was used, and an...