Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:On Sunday, a satellite that had been partially constructed by knitting gold-coated tungsten wire launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. But a new U.K. satellite successfully launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a Falcon 9 rocket early Sunday, and it is a stunningly knitted example of truly out-of-the-box satellite design. The high-tech “yarn” used in this project is knitted to such precision that it’s nearly transparent, but the machines that make it are relatively commonplace. “It’s a very standard, off‑the‑shelf industrial machine used for knitting jumpers,” Amool Raina, OSS production lead, told New Scientist. If the mission goes well, the U.K. Ministry of Defence may opt for an entire network of knitted satellites.