Space Broadband Access: The Race Has Just Begun

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an exponential growth of the commercial space industry, including rocket launch, satellite network deployment, private space travel, and even extraterrestrial colonization. Several trends are predicted in this unprecedented transition to an era of space-enabled broadband access.

Technology Trends for Massive MIMO towards 6G

“…These networks serve two distinct functions: facilitating satellite backhaul communications for application scenarios such as customer-premises equipment (CPE) and direct low data rate services for handhelds, and adapting eMTC (enhanced Machine Type Communication) and NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet-of-Things) operation for satellite communications. Recent years have seen a surge of interest and development in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, which enable broadband access and services [54]. Among the significant players in this field, including Starlink (SpaceX), Kuiper (Amazon), OneWeb, Boeing, and Telestat, Starlink is the frontrunner, owing to the scale and dimension of its satellite megaconstellation and its service subscriber base.…”

“…Several key factors have spurred the rapid growth of spaceborne broadband access [54], such as a decrease in launch costs, private investment, the widespread implementation of AI and cloud/edge computing, and advances in satellite wireless and networking technologies. From the perspective of wireless communications and particularly massive MIMO, an overview of trends, challenges and possible solutions is provided below.…”

“…Many LEO megaconstellation developers aim to deploy satellites as low as possible to minimize propagation delay, while the ITU follows a "First Come, First Served" approach in accessing orbit/spectrum resources through the ITU cooperative system. With increasing congestion and reported collision incidents in LEO [54], regulatory measures, strategies, and technologies are needed to manage growing space traffic and ensure safe disposal of satellites/spacecraft. With the escape velocity being at 7.8 km/s, tracking, localizing the satellites/spacecraft and further enabling collision-avoidance can be difficult even with contemporary AI-assisted sensing and detecting technologies.…”

Experimental Investigation of the Electrical Wiring Configuration of the HK40 Hall Thruster Operation

“…While the chemical propulsion systems currently present the only viable solution for launch vehicles and are unquestionably more suitable for maneuvers that require fast burns due to their much higher thrust levels, electric propulsion systems can provide the same delta-V while consuming much less propellant compared to their chemical counterparts. Among electric propulsion concepts, Hall thrusters are the most employed type for commercial operations and earth-orbiting satellites (Frieman et al 2016;Lev et al 2019;Potrivitu et al 2020;Huo 2022). As Hall thrusters gain flight heritage, they are also being increasingly considered for deep space missions (Brophy et al 2012;Levchenko et al 2018).…”