A community-driven approach to democratize access to satellite ground stations
Vaibhav Singh, Akarsh Prabhakara, Diana Zhang, Osman Yağan, Swarun Kumar
Abstract
Should you decide to launch a nano-satellite today in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), the cost of renting ground station communication infrastructure is likely to significantly exceed your launch costs. While space launch costs have lowered significantly with innovative launch vehicles, private players, and smaller payloads, access to ground infrastructure remains a luxury. This is especially true for smaller LEO satellites that are only visible at any location for a few tens of minutes a day and whose signals are extremely weak, necessitating bulky and expensive ground station infrastructure.
Topics & Concepts
SatelliteGround stationRentingLow earth orbitCommunications satelliteGround segmentTelecommunicationsComputer scienceRemote sensingAerospace engineeringEngineeringGeographyCivil engineeringSatellite Communication SystemsIoT Networks and ProtocolsOpportunistic and Delay-Tolerant Networks