Plasma Resonance Could Overcome Radio Silence For Returning Spacecraft

Zothecula points out this article about a workaround for a long-standing problem with space-flight communications: some of the most cruicial time of a re-entry is also time when the craft cannot send data to or receive instructions from the ground controllers. From the article: Returning spacecraft hit the atmosphere at over five times the speed of sound, generating a sheath of superheated ionized plasma that blocks radio communications during the critical minutes of reentry. It's a problem that's vexed space agencies for decades, but researchers at China's Harbin Institute of Technology are developing a new method of piercing the plasma and maintaining communications. This means coupling the craft's antenna to that plasma sheath, "[causing] the sheath to act as an inductor. Together, they create a resonant circuit."

Comments

Re:Star Trek solution, eh?

[St.Creed]

what can be done in that precise stage so the comunication channel becomes the difference between live and death?

We can send telemetry, making a difference between life and death for the *next* crew to go up.