Disrupting communication by our satellites orbiting the Earth may be due to the freak space weather, says a new study conducted by a group of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Understanding these failures may improve our future satellite designs leading to the creation of next-generation satellites.
Man made satellites remain fixed for a finite length of time at a fixed location above the Earth by making an orbit to provide services like television signals and Internet communications across the world. During its stay the satellite is bombarded with high energy particles resulting from geomagnetic storms and solar flares. The problem becomes significant after it is exposed to the electromagnetic radiation for longer period and causes poor performance and also malfunction.
Whitney Lohmeyer from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics said, “If we can understand how the environment affects these satellites, and we can design to improve the satellites to be more tolerant, then it would be very beneficial not just in cost, but also in efficiency.”
He calls for changeup in the design of our satellites as they are used widely these days with the advent of TV, Internet and mobile technology. The European Space Agency (ESA) had also outlined plans earlier for establishing monitoring stations to investigate the solar max influence on our satellites.
The new study was published in the Space Weather magazine. The research was conducted using data from Inmarsat, a telecommunications organization in the UK. Eight satellites were monitored for sixteen years having 26 hard failures.
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