Express-AM4 Satellite Salvage Plan For Antarctic Internet In Jeopardy

First time accepted submitter amcenwest writes with news on the fate of the mis-launched Ekspress-AM4. From the article: "A modern, state of the art communications satellite stranded last August in a useless orbit will constitute a double failure if Russian officials de-orbit the spacecraft as planned, according to an expert from the team hoping to salvage the spacecraft. 'A new Express AM4 orbit could provide 14 to 16 hours of daily Internet coverage for the international scientific research bases in Antarctica,' said Readdy." Unfortunately, the satellite is scheduled to begin a deorbiting burn between March 20th and 26th, so it looks unlikely that it can be salvaged at this point.

Comments

Why isn't it possible?

[HBI]

Serious question: why isn't it possible to put a set of birds in polar orbits and just do handoffs a few times a day as they move through their orbits? Or is Antarctic research not worth lofting 3-4 birds in a circumpolar orbit separated by 90 to 120 degrees?

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[msauve]

No, it's not worth lofting 3-4 birds in a circumpolar orbit separated by 90 to 120 degrees. But that's only my opinion.

I'll respect your point of view, if you respect mine, so if you think it is worth it, get a some of your friends together and put in a $million or so each, and go for it. I won't try to stop you.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: why isn't it possible to put a set of birds in polar orbits and just do handoffs a few times a day as they move through their orbits? Or is Antarctic research not worth lofting 3-4 birds in a circumpolar orbit separated by 90 to 120 degrees?

Uhh... do you know how hard birds would have to flap just to get into orbit, let alone stay there? Plus, you know... air.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[Donwulff]

It is possible. If you read the article in question, you would've seen that National Science Foundation (running the Antarctic Research Program) received bids in the range of $100 million to $500 million for satellite broadband. So not only is it possible, NFS has sought bids on it, and we know the projected price. No word on whether this is within the NFS budget for this task, however.

Personally I would assume it is not worth it. And hence enters this plan, as Polar Broadband Ltd. believes they can salvage the satellite into Antarctic service for as little as $20 million. It may still be more than NSF is willing to spend, especially considered the risks and reduced lifetime on the satellite and the fact the satellite was never planned for this use so is not going to be optimal solution.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[AikonMGB]

Lol. Try Antarctic Broadband -- nanosattellite cube (20cm x 20cm x 20cm) with Ka-band bent-pipe transponder capable of connecting mobile ground stations in the Antarctic circle to permanent stations off-continent. Launch a demonstrator for a few million, show that you can achieve the link, then follow on with duplicate-build cubes as benefits become realized.

If you want to put more eggs into fewer baskets, with a lower long-term cost, you can do two cubes in inverted Molniya orbits with long loiters over the southern pole; same Ka-band payload can be used, but you'll probably want larger cubes to match the end-of-life power.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[AikonMGB]

Addendum: the problem with doing two cubes in inverted Molniya orbits is that nobody goes there, which means you are going to have to secure your own dedicated launch, which is very expensive. The benefit of chaining a number of nanosats in standard LEO sun-synchronous polar orbits is that everyone goes there, which means hitching a (cheap) ride as a secondary payload is much more feasible.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[SteveFoerster]

For that kind of money it would be cool if someone could deploy a statite.

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[davester666]

Wouldn't it be 1 or 2 orders of magnitude cheaper just to throw a cable to the next landmass?

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[jaymemaurice]

Always wondered how well fiber optic cable would do on shifting plates of ice... do trench it on the ice or lay it on top?? when it freezes into the ice and the 300 tonn chunk of ice shifts relative to the other and breaks the cable, how do you fix it?!

Re:Why isn't it possible?

[dargaud]

Interesting. I was involved for a while in Antarctic communications and it's a big problem, mostly on the fact that most research programs are run on a shoestring budget. Only the US has a bigger budget, but not up to ordering its own satellites. For decades they've been running on mostly abandoned military satellites in 'bad' geosync orbit, meaning that they wobble around their position and can be seen when they are far enough south, so there are about 2 windows of communication daily from McMurdo, but nothing much from the pole itself which has a big need for high throughput thanks the the latest experiments such as IceCube.

Other stations on the coast (up to 65deg south) could point to geosync orbit but it usually cost too much, so they rely on short data connections via Irridium. Almost only limited to mail. Scientific data is via sneakernet in summer, on the supply ships. There are regularly ambitious plans, like a couple years ago laying an optical fiber for 1500km between the pole and Dome C and building a big antenna there, but the Antarctic Treaty precludes leaving permanent installations there, as would be a fiber on the ice.

Shortwave?

[betterunixthanunix]

Perhaps some portion of the shortwave spectrum could be used for a (low speed) link with the tip of South America, Africa, or perhaps Australia?

Re:Shortwave?

[RubberDogBone]

The data rate on HF radio maxes out around 100 kilobits/s, or about as the same as an old dialup modem. And that's if everything is working well. A more typical experience would be slower.

Speeds like that are generally too slow for transferring megabytes of data that might be generated by a science outpost, and not useful at all for photographs or imaging files. For that, you want satellite or fibre or somebody to pack out a hard drive occasionally.

HF is still useful for low-bandwidth things like teletype, SCADA, telemetry, and some other things. And of course voice and CW comms, and digital modes like PSK31.

Re:Shortwave?

[rossdee]

You left out New Zealand. When the US antartic program was run by the Navy, the support was based in Christchurch.
(and McMurdo is close to Scott base, in the part of the continent that is claimed by NZ - known as The Ross Dependency

Iridium

[storkus]

It IS possible, and it's called Iridium. The catch is that it's low bandwidth. But the antarctic bases (as well as plenty of arctic users) are Iridium's bread and butter, particularly among civilian users.

Re:Stupid question why?

[ThePeices]

They need broadband because while the bandwidth of hundreds of aircraft delivered hard drives is fantastic, the latency sucks.

Re:Stupid question why?

[thrich81]

Several reasons:
    1) Often we would like to get a big sample data set back to our home offices for analysis while the field team is still in place to do quality analysis they can't do.
    2) Sometimes the field team needs application software or documentation down there. On a related note, because of the availability of Internet there we are much less paranoid about shipping down every piece of documentation they could possibly want.
    3) Recreational -- during down time the people down there like to surf the web like anyone else -- this is currently a low priority use but is still be nice for the folks down there 3, 4 or 16 months at a time.