‘Internet beyond the clouds’: ESA looks at building satellite network

The European Space Agency (ESA) is studying how to build a mega-constellation of fraud-proof satellites in space.

Until recently, satellites sent radio communications signals from their position in the atmosphere to receivers on the ground, which would then relay that information to cell phone carriers, air traffic control centers and elsewhere.

ESA’s proposed HydRON project will create a network of interconnected satellites in space that transmit laser signals between them and several optical networks on the ground, in what they call a “world first” for fiber in the sky.

This project, they say, will provide Internet speeds of approximately one terabyte per second.

“HydRON aims to demonstrate the world’s first all-optical multi-orbit network… in other words ‘Internet beyond the clouds,'” according to ESA.

The HydRON project was first announced in 2019, but is now reaching the end of the design phase.

Thales Alenia Space, a joint French-Italian space manufacturer, will take the lead in producing low-orbit satellites for the project.

How does HydRON work?

The project has two parts, the scientific research to build this type of project and an “early bird demonstration” that will test their first network.

The HydRON project will work with satellites in low orbit, at a maximum altitude of 1,000 km above the earth, and with geospatial satellites, the highest of all at about 36,000 km.

According to Xavier Lansel, managing consultant at Euroconsult, the project will mix key nodes in these types of satellites so that they work together with minimal reliance on ground systems.

ESA says they are not yet sure how many satellites they will use in their demonstration.

Daniele Lo Forti, design authority for optical communications projects from Thales, said his company is involved in the creation of the satellites as well as the on-board routing that will direct and redirect traffic between the satellites instead of the ground.

They are also working on technology that will use light as a way to carry terabytes of data in a single laser beam.

This technology, according to Lo Forti, will make it easier for providers who eventually use this mega-constellation network to offer people more data.

“We’re in the era and age of communications where there’s a lot of data being collected on board satellites… and there are users who need more and more data,” Lo Forti said.

Using the laser link between the satellites will make the HydRON system more difficult to intercept, either by bad weather or by cybercriminals looking to “spoof” the radio frequency signals, Lo Forti continued.

In January, the European Union’s Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said there had been a “sharp increase in attacks” on satellite navigation systems, where signals are either jammed or send false information to the receiver on an aircraft.

Recent media coverage attributes some of these incidents to the Russians.

‘4K video in every pocket’

Moving data away from radio frequencies also addresses a “bottleneck” of data being processed by a “data-hungry world,” according to a statement from ESA.

A website for the HydRON project says it could bring the Internet to “ground users located in remote areas without available broadband access.”

Lo Forti said their ultimate goal is to bring “4k video to every pocket.”

A spokesman from ESA said the HydRON project builds on what Europe has been doing in the field of optical telecommunications for several decades by “transforming point-to-point links into a multi-orbit network system”.

Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute, said the ESA would likely have public sector clients first, such as the EU’s Operational Space Program or security and defense companies.

But with competition from related systems from the US Space Development Agency (SDA) and SpaceX, the exploration company run by billionaire Elon Musk, Moeller expects providers to use ESA’s new network.

“If you get to that terabyte range, you automatically create a market,” he said.

A phased launch until 2027

ESA says this project will put Europe “at the forefront” of the world’s optical telecommunications industry, a new but complex market that is booming in a new age space race, according to Lansel.

“Everyone is discovering its potential at the same time,” Lansel said.

SpaceX already has its own network of Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit that use the technology proposed in the ESA project to pass data between each other at the speed of light, according to a description of the system on the website.

In March, the company said it would begin selling this technology to other providers.

In a statement to Euronews Next, ESA said that SpaceX’s recent expansion into the optical network “underlines the strategic importance of this technology”.

Their system aims for “much higher dimensions” than those offered by SpaceX with the amount of data transferred immediately over the network or the distances between satellites in their constellation system.

Because SpaceX in particular is building a private network, Lansel believes the company will get it up and running before the European Space Agency, whose current timeline is for a phased launch of their demonstration system. which will start in 2027 and end in 2029.