Question

A country wants to establish a new scientific research station at Antarctica. There is no undersea optical fibre connecting Antarctica to rest of the world. How can the planned research station connect to the Internet? Propose one wireless solution. Provide arguments to support your choice.

Answer 1

Almost every continent on Earth is connected to the internet by a series of undersea fibre optic cables, but Antarctica is the one continent unreachable by fibre.

• For providing internet connection to our planned research station, there can be many ways depending on how much investment do we have.
• We can aim is to develop and launch a pair of communication satellites that will be placed in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth.
• The trajectory is similar to the Molniya orbits used by Russia for its communications satellites.
• Only reversed so there is a long “dwell time” over the southern pole.
• This means the satellite’s time over the South Pole would effectively be 18 hours a day.
• And with two satellites orbiting in opposite phases, Antarctica would have continuous satellite coverage.
• This frequency of 26.5-40 GHz allows for very high-speed data links within a narrow beam.
• Lastly, we can plan to launch our own satellite or take services from the companies which can provide us with these kinds of services depending on our budget.

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