The Geostationary or Geosynchronous orbit is a ring around the equator, 36 000 kilometres from earth, holding an architecture of mythic proportions.
Goonhilly is connected to four groups - INTELSAT (intelsat was the first geostationary satellite to go up in 1965) INMARSAT (which is the International Maritine Satellite Organisation), PanAmSat and EutelSat. When they started with Intelsat they put one up over the Atlantic then one over the Pacific and then the Indian Ocean. Then they had the global coverage of three satellites in the geotationary orbit, in time to broadcast the moon landings.
The INMARSAT 4 series have something like 109 transponders, a 9 metre spot beam (something you can pay to have point at you), a transponder is circuitry, its the thing that sends and receives, that makes it work, receives, amplifies, sends. They are about seven and a half tons, something like a double decker bus, a spread of solar panels about 46 metres - FORTYSIXMETRES - a power station in space. Whizzing round the equator at 6 900 miles per hour, give or take.
They deal with phone calls, internet traffic, faxes, tv pictures, video conferencing - all the conversations and data too, banking facilities that lets people use hole in the wall machines in remote places. Many dishes can point to one satellite because they can carry more information than one dish can send.
At the peak there were 64 dishes at Goonhilly, in 2004. Now they’re gradually going. Its an economic decision. Its a nature reserve and it was built with the understanding that if sat com ceased, the dishes would be removed, something like this. The dishes are not protected, though the area is of special scientific interest. They have been part of the landscape for 45 years.
When you see the dish you can have some idea of which satellite it is pointing at, from the elevation.
They don’t control the satellites in any way, they deal with the signals going through - extra terrestrial relays. They do the dishes.
The geostationary is, of course a limited natural resource. Satellites are in ‘bays’ roughly 5 000 miles apart.
Telstar had synthetic sapphire windows to stop photons getting in. The first dish was built to communicate with Telstar and is a cross between a bridge and a battleship because the structural steelwork was provided by John Browns Land Boilers, who were a subset of John Browns ship builders. The structural concrete work was by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company who were building the Tamar bridge at the time who went on to build the Forth bridge.
The sixty satellite dishes of the largest earth station in the world are being dismantled. Efforts are underway to suggest re purposing of the dishes. The receiving dishes can be used as radio telescopes, they could be used as parabolic antennas to harvest solar energy. They could be used for independent projects by scientists, engineers, artists, educationalists. As part of Deep Space Network constellations for other countries. So far the only public access is via the visitor’s centre, from where its very difficult to gain a deep understanding of the technology. The independent efforts to open up this resource to civil society will test the openness of the current owners.
Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station is on Goonhilly Downs in the South West of England, in Cornwall on the Lizard peninsula, not far from Lands End.
It received the first transatlantic television broadcast in 1962 via the Telstar satellite. Not far away, on the coast, Marconi sent the first successful transatlantic radio signal and across the bay at Porthcurno beach, underwater cables link to Gibraltar and to India and to Hearts Content in Newfoundland. The cables were originally made from gutta perche, which maybe comes from India and they were designed so that English people could yell orders down phone lines at laughing people around the world.
About a month ago I talked to Sundar Sarukkai at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, to ask his perspective on India’s satellite programme, the “impact of satellites on India is tremendous”. He told me about the first phase of satellite technology, Edusat was an experiment in sending lessons to tv sets in schools, via satellite. There were problems with it, more to do with the nature of teaching than with the satellites, in that children were uncomfortable with not having a teacher there they could ask. I remember in primary school going into the main hall to watch a tv lesson. I don’t know if it was anything to do with satellite. I don’t remember the programme, I remember the way we sat round the tv.
Then they tried something similar with telemedecine. This idea was initiated by Kasturirangan, the then head of ISRO, now head of NIAS and a politician. This was to have mobile hospitals, vans with one doctor and equipment linked by satellite to doctors in the city. This way people could be diagnosed from their rural areas and only travel to hospitals as needed. it was particularly important for the north east where there was difficulty with access.
Largely though the internet has brought down the importance of these satellite links. There are now kiosks, in remote areas run by ISRO, called knowledge centres, where for a nominal fee, say 5 rupees, a person can access the web and be on a direct connection with a doctor via webcam. In Tamil Nadu there was another experiment linking to veterinary colleges, so farmers would bring their cows for diagnosis. Another experiment was for fishermen giving daily info on fish and tides to help them decide on where to fish.
“None of this worked of course, eventually. Its very interesting why they didn’t work - I think that’s the real culture of technology issues there.”
They tried it also for markets, so if you sell vegetables, with the internet you can look and see the prices, but just as the internet made the satellites redundant, the mobile phone has made the internet redundant. If a farmer can call a friend in the market directly, where’s the need to look at the internet.
The driving force of satellites though has been about people, the integration of the satellite programme to Indian civil society, “it was never a part of a military programme, the satellite programme.”
I asked about the connection to Russia:
“Indian Space programme did have a connection with Russia, particularly with the cryogenic engine, which only the Russians, Americans and Chinese had and when the Russians promised plans for the technology, that’s when the Americans put an embargo, they put pressure on Russia not to sell the technology and they put ISRO under the blacklist. The US had this blacklist of the Indian Space Agency and Atomic Agency…The so-called dual-use technologies, so they couldn’t buy things from American companies that were dual-use. So now they built their own cryogenic engine. A lot of space scientists say its good sanctions were imposed on India because you could develop your own stuff.”
So then about the moon programme:
“I think there is a larger ambition than the space programme.”
-It becomes about national identity does it?
“I think, some people tend to see it that way, but I think there’s also a lot of interest among the scientists to engage with this question about certain kinds of technology, which you can experiment with, build with, in doing this. Now you have sort of perfected, or at least have a very defined technology for satellites, for rockets…now that India has capabilities in both, it now has to think what other kinds of technologies they should be testing and building.
The first thing that comes to is the lunar programme. Does it have a national thing…I think right now the climate of the world is that anything you do is seen as a larger national process…but if you ask me are scientists doing it driven by that, I would think that it’s much less. The space programme is basically a common programme. Its a government of India programme.”
One of Sarukkai’s papers is called ‘Praying to Machines’. it speculates on why people in India have their cars blessed and adorned with flower garlands at certain temples. What does that say about the relation of people to technology, of religion to science. I often noticed Ganesh on the dashboard of people’s cars, once it was Mary and the infant Jesus, looking almost identical, one in blue, one in red. I bought a Ganesh sticker specifically for my computer, the god of fast status symbols. I watched a huge four by four honking uselessly at a cow eating the garland on its radiator.
A small bronze model of Chandrayaan-1 has already been taken to be blessed at the auspicious Tirupati Temple in the Andra mountains.
Today I went to find satellites in Trinity. The eclipses are starting soon. They begin short, say a minute and then can be 20 minutes long by August. Shaun Bloomfield told me this. He works with Hinode. Japanese children choose the satellite’s names. Hinode means sunrise. Yohkoh means sunbeam, Yohkoh and Hinode were Solar A and B originally.
I asked him to describe Hinode’s orbit.
Then we talked about SOHO’s orbit and how it sits at Lagrangian point one.
Then we talked about STEREO. STEREO, my biggest hang up. When will they meet again? What will they think of each other? And then what? They drift close enough to remember, to wonder if they did the right thing, away from all eyes, and then continue their separate journeys, forgotten heroes of the three dimensional world.
Very cute idea that the Srishti students have come up with, after tons of work drilling through ideas.
Their design brief has been to come up with learning tools for children around the age of 12 about the launch of Chandrayaan-1.
I love that the spacecraft gets hidden in a drawer.
