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Wozniak's Latest Start-Up Company Lets You Track Satellites and Space Junk

Privateer, the company that was co-founded by Steve Wozniak, has officially unveiled its first creation, called Wayfinder. The latter is a space tracking app, which allows people to track orbiting satellites, visualize them, and even monitor space debris.
Image depicting objects in Space 6 photos
Photo: Screenshot from Privateer website
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Woz’s new start-up company is different from the one he started with the late Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne almost 46 years ago. Instead of computers, Wozniak's latest enterprise is a way to see the world outside the box if you will, and it will allow ordinary people to see what is going on in space.

For now, it is free to use, as Privateer seems to have found a sponsor for the Wayfinder part of the website. The sponsor is integrated into the form of a wristwatch placed in the corner of the website, displaying the current UTC and date.

Well, since they made it all possible, we might as well just write that an Omega Speedmaster Professional watch is displayed, as you can see in the screenshots we took on the website, found in the photo gallery of this article.

About 27,000 objects in Space can be tracked right now, so if you happen to be a master procrastinator and have work cut out for yourself today (you do, let's be honest with ourselves), we advise you to set a timer for yourself to stop looking at things in space if that is not your job.

Privateer's Wayfinder comes in the form of a 3D globe that may be used by both casual observers and professional satellite operators to get a better view of what is going on in space. Another cool feature of the entire program is that you can scroll backward or forwards in time to see where the monitored satellites have been or where they will go, as Spaceexplored notes.

Data is gathered from multiple sources, and the goal is to make people realize that there is significantly more debris in space than they imagine. If we think about items larger than 1 mm, then we are referring to over 100 million objects traveling at about 17,000 mph (ca. 27,359 kph). That would put a scratch in your space suit, and it might not buff out.

Later, the start-up founded by Steve Wozniak and Alex Fielding wants to monitor that debris from space with dedicated satellites, which they will call Pono. The latter word is from Hawaiian, and it means to "do the right thing." That's a nice mantra to have, right?

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About the author: Sebastian Toma
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Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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