Stratellite: Encyclopedia II - Stratellite - Details

Stratellite - Details

High-altitude airships, like the Stratellite, would hover lower than a satellite, but far above the jet stream and even above most weather, in the stratosphere approximately 13 miles (20 km) above the earth. A single unit could then send broadband, mobile phone signals and digital television and radio to a large area. Compared to a satellite it would reduce lag (by a factor of about 2000 for geostationary satellites, 15 for low orbiting satellites), but it covers a smaller area of land, while, compared to terrestrial communications towers, it would cover a larger area with lagtimes that depend more on the internal communications equipment than on distance.

While the Stratellite could send some signals to an area the size of Texas or France (780,000 km²), the broadband needs of such a large area would probably greatly exceed the capabilities of a single unit. Wireless signals can be sent to, and received from an area with a diameter of 200 miles (320 kilometres), but terrain features and man-made structures could partially and locally block the signal at the edges. Also, since the Stratellite is designed to regularly return to the surface for maintenance (see specifications, below), some overlap and redundancy would be required to maintain continuous service. Sanswire, the company behind the Stratellite, plans to use them initially in major metropolitan areas.

Proponents claim the promise of high-altitude communications platforms like the Stratellite is to do away with the need for terrestrial broadcast towers, and costly and time consuming hardware updates. Hardware updates to a single unit would effectively update an entire grid of virtual broadcast towers. This would also mean that an area without terrestrial communications towers, such as a developing nation or a wartorn country could set up a national broadband grid with relative ease.

The unmanned Stratellite would be powered by solar cells and propelled by electric motors, and would resemble a 245-foot-long (75-metre) double-tailed whale when complete, over twice as long as (and roughly 8 times the volume of) the Blue whale.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Details", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki