This downplays the carve-out Congress made for geosynchronous satellites, which can transmit across the entire continent.
FORBES: Court Calls Streaming-Video Service IVI A Deadly Threat To TV
Such geosynchronous vehicles act as relay stations for telecommunications, and also as broadcasting platforms for satellite television.
And an optical mission to test laser relay capabilities from earth geosynchronous (GEO) orbit will soon follow.
FORBES: Future Of NASA's Aging Deep Space Network Lies In X-Rays And Lasers
However, equipment to contact these satellites can cost thousands of dollars and none have ever been geosynchronous or high-bandwidth.
It passed far closer even than the geosynchronous satellites that orbit the Earth, but there was no risk of impacts or collisions.
Lockheed Martin's original SBIRS contract includes HEO payloads, two geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites, as well as ground-based assets to receive and process the infrared data.
ENGADGET: First piece of SBIRS missile defense system launched, not shot down
Yet Inmarsat's birds cover almost the entire world: They fly in geosynchronous orbit (GEOs, as they're known) 36, 000 kilometers above the earth and thus have large footprints.
Vistar uses even cheaper technology--leased space on a geosynchronous satellite that is in view of all of North America--but its devices can't transmit as much data per burst.
Geosynchronous satellites are so distant that their images aren't sharp, while low-earth orbit satellites, which fly as low as 100 miles, can feed information only when they pass over an area of interest.
By launching closer to the equator, the rocket receives a bigger boost from the Earth's rotation, meaning it can lift nearly double the mass of a normal Baikonur payload - a maximum of three tonnes, as opposed to 1.7 tonnes, into a geosynchronous orbit 36, 000km above the Earth.
应用推荐