Satellites - History, Harpoons, and Military Communications

Currently there's almost 11,000 tonnes of objects whizzing above our heads in space and not all of it is actually useful. Only 75% of the current satellites in orbit are functioning and these are surrounded by millions of pieces of junk, from astronauts gloves to old rockets. Learn about how satellites continuously have to avoid being struck by these objects and what engineers/scientists across the globe are doing to tackle the growing problem.

The science of communications blossomed in the last century: the initial pioneers include the demonstration of radio signals by Faraday in the mid nineteenth century, followed by Marconi`s world-first Atlantic radio demonstrations. Clarke`s prediction of the Geostationary orbit (1945) illustrated how the entire globe could be connected by just three satellites. Rapidly the building blocks to satellite communication flourished. Now fast forward to the future: space, laser, unmanned systems, and a lot more. This talk and demo will look at the Past, Present and Future of satellite communications.

MilSatCom Management is a core subsystem of any Military Satellite Communications System. MilSatCom Management can be particularly challenging due to the highly dynamic nature of military deployments, the level of protection, resilience, availability and survivability of Services required, and of course, the physical environment that can impact Connectivity (i.e. the battlefield)!