Associate Professor of the Department of Radio Electronics Spoke about Space Communication Systems

11:26, August 22, 2023

The expert explained how Russia is developing its own Starlink and why Voyager-2 is sending out a signal

Ivan Malygin, Associate Professor of the Department of Radio Electronics and Communications at the UrFU Engineering School of Information Technologies, Telecommunications and Control Systems, talked about the means of communication. In particular, how it is possible to receive a signal from Voyager-2, what analog of Starlink is being developed in Russia, and whether cell towers and smartphones are dangerous to health.

Hazardous Technologies

"When new technologies are invented, there are safety and health concerns in society. When the steam locomotive first appeared, researchers calculated whether it was safe to travel at 40 kilometers per hour, and with cars, whether it was safe to travel at 12 kilometers per hour. It was thought that there would not be enough air. Although scientists have conducted a large number of studies that have shown that there are no factors that prove the harmful effects of cellular communication on people, imagine that talking on the phone is harmful. It is impossible that a person today will be able to give up the smartphone," explains Ivan Malygin.

The degree of danger depends on the intensity of the radiation, the expert explains. The main negative effect of smartphones is the heating of the body caused by microwave radiation. However, when a person is sunbathing, for example, he or she is exposed to the sun's radiation to such an extent that the skin changes color, but this does not stop many people.

"I have been working with microwave radiation for 30 years, and I know roughly what life-threatening levels are. Now smartphones have low radiation and no one has ever gotten a sunburn from them. Doctors who say kids need to use smartphones less are right, of course. In general, a child should lead an active lifestyle, not sit with a phone," says Ivan Malygin.

The Amazing Voyagers

Launched by NASA in 1977, the two American Voyager spacecraft are among the most influential research projects ever undertaken. Both Voyagers explored the outer planets of the solar system, sending back the first high-quality images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Voyagers were the third and fourth spacecraft whose flight plan included a mission outside the solar system (the first two were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11). Although the spacecraft were launched more than 40 years ago, Voyager 2, which is more than 20 billion kilometers from Earth, is still transmitting signals.

"In space, a signal can be transmitted very far. Receiving a signal from Voyager 2 today is made possible by its power source, which is still functioning, and by its antenna system, whose characteristics are constantly being improved by NASA specialists as the spacecraft moves away: the surface area and sensitivity of the receiver are being increased. The fact is that the Earth is constantly "noisy" and interfering. But sooner or later we will lose the signal: either the battery in the probe will die or the noise level will exceed the useful signal," Malygin believes.

Satellite Broadband

At the end of 2022, a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket was launched from the Vostochny cosmodrome and put into orbit the first satellite of the federal project "Sphere" - Skif-D. According to Roscosmos, the new satellite will be used to develop technologies for providing broadband Internet access services throughout Russia. The project's satellites will operate at an altitude of about 8,000 kilometers (average circular orbit), which was chosen to ensure priority coverage of our country's territory with a smaller number of satellites compared to, for example, several thousand of Elon Musk's satellites.

"Elon Musk's idea to create high-speed satellite Internet is not new. First of all, satellite Internet is already used in Russia, for example, sensors on oil and gas pipelines in remote places, where there is no communication, transmit information to a satellite. Such Internet can be "wired" even at the dacha: the equipment costs 15-20 thousand rubles. But so far the speed of such Internet is not high - 1-2 Mb: you can not play games, but you can receive mail. Secondly, Russia is developing the Sphere project, but only on the territory of our country," explains Ivan Malygin.

The goal of the Sphere project is to create a global network of satellites (for communication and monitoring) based on several regional systems (for communication - Skif, Yamal, Express, Express-RV, Marathon; for monitoring - Berkut-X, Berkut-O, Berkut-VD, Berkut-S and Smotr). In total, more than 600 spacecraft are planned for the Sphere project.

"The purpose of our project is to close the country's goals. Elon Musk, as far as I know, was just looking for a payload for rockets. Today Starlink has 1.5 million subscribers, less than the mobile operator Motiv," Ivan Malygin clarifies.

Anna Marinovich

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office. 
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