Astronauts trained at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to install a high-speed satellite link to the International Space Station that will improve their connections with Europe.
The system will enable astronauts to connect at home broadband internet speeds – delivering a whole family’s worth of video streaming for communications and a data pipeline connecting the scientific experiments aboard the Station to researchers in Europe.
The 20-year-old Station – which was built when the internet was in its infancy – will be equipped with a dedicated European autonomous communications module, complementing the connectivity provided by a US satellite communications system.
The small fridge-sized device to be installed on the outside of the ESA Columbus module of the Station will send signals into space, where they will be picked up by a European telecommunications satellite in geostationary orbit 36 000 km above Earth – some 90 times the height of the Station.
The satellite is part of the European Data Relay Systemand will enable internet-like connectivity with the Station, relaying data directly between the Station and European soil via the system’s ground station in Harwell in the UK.