Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Mobile Satellite Ventures Hybrid Satellite Network
Mobile Satellite Ventures is in the process of receiving patents to support a Hybrid Satellite Network. If implemented, the company would have an extraterrestrial communications system to support ground-level operations on different planets.
(Mobile Satellite Ventures hybrid space communications network)
In one scenario, a satellite would orbit another planet (like Mars) in communication with a base station on the surface. That network would, in turn, communicate with a satellite orbiting Earth and Earth ground stations.
"The fundamental concept of the ATC [Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) concept of combining satellite signals with signals from terrestrial repeaters] has created an opportunity for significant innovation," said Peter Karabinis, senior vice president and chief technology officer with Mobile Satellite Ventures of Reston, Va."...we imagined a future architecture that would enable communications as we expanded our presence on a planet," said Lon Levin, co-inventor, with Karabinis, then a senior officer with Mobile Satellite Ventures who also had co-founded XM Satellite Radio. "This architecture would not only provide efficiently expandable communications on the surface of a planet, it would also provide an efficient and effective means to have many simultaneous communications between Earth and other planets."
Science fiction writer George O. Smith has already contributed a significant amount of prior art on this idea. In his 1942 story QRM - Interplanetary, he writes about Venus Equilateral Station, which serves as the Interplanetary Communication Center for the solar system.
The Venus Equilateral Relay Station was a modern miracle of engineering if you liked to believe the books. Actually, Venus Equilateral was an asteroid that had been shoved into its orbit about the Sun, forming a practical demonstration of the equilateral triangle solution of the Three Moving Bodies. It was a long cylinder, about three miles in length by about a mile in diameter...This was the center of Interplanetary Communications. This was the main office. It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line, and as such, it was well manned. Orders for everything emanated from Venus Equilateral.
Smith was an electronics engineer, and Arthur C. Clarke remarked that Smith was probably the "first technically qualified writer - to spell out the uses of space stations for space communications."
From Space Communications Patent Spans Solar System and Mobile Satellite Ventures.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/8/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Communication ")
Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...' - Cordwainer Smith, 1950.
Huawei Pura X Folding Phattie Phone
Why can't we get more innovative phone configurations?
Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.' Vernor Vinge, 1999.
Will Whales Be Our First Contact?
'He had piloted the Adastra to its first contact with the civilization of another solar system.' - Murray Leinster, 1935.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
AIs Turn Marxist Under Bad Management
'It was a general strike of the robots...'
