Small, flat, rooftop satellite antennas could replace big, bulky, costly dishes
"Ground Control to Major Tom," the evergreen lyrics to David Bowie’s 70s hit, Space Oddity. What’s odd is that, despite huge advances in satellites themselves, much of the physical infrastructure connecting those spacecraft to Earth still relies on large mechanically steered dishes, a model increasingly strained by the rise of massive low-Earth-orbit constellations.
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego may have developed a different way to connect satellites to Earth, replacing large mechanical dishes with networks of smaller, flat antennas distributed across rooftops, telecom towers, and other buildings. Their system, called ArrayLink, could dramatically increase satellite data capacity while making ground stations cheaper, easier to deploy, and far more scalable.
Satellite communication has quietly become one of the most critical infrastructures of modern civilization. Far more critical than you probably think. Beyond satellite internet, these systems underpin GPS navigation, financial transactions, weather forecasting, military communications, emergency response,...
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