Creating a Social Impact from the Atmosphere

via PSFK

Communication has always played an integral role in history: 600 years ago our ancestors kickstarted globalization by way of sea and recent innovators built networking platforms to influence entire social movements

The internet has developed as the critical tool for communication and allowed the world to connect in remarkable ways. However, there are still people and countries that live without access to it. Today, a team at Portuguese company Quarkson is a modern-day Marco Polo of sorts: engineers working to make the internet available to every person on earth, an access declared by the United Nations as a human right.

The Portuguese company takes communication from the sea to the sky as they develop and build a constellation of SkyOrbiters, long-endurance unmanned satellites designed to offer Internet to the most remote corners of the world. The fleet of SkyOrbiters will orbit the Earth in various low and high altitudes in the atmosphere rather than space. Six models are to be powered by fossil fuel while the remaining three models will harvest power through a solar array on their wings, allowing the cutting-edge technology to fly around the world for weeks, months, or years without the need to stop or refuel.

State-of-the-art structural design components allow the SkyOrbiters to deliver a range of access to telecommunications and broadcasting services across low-density and high-density platforms. The SkyOrbiters are used in conjunction with systems being developed, including the revolutionary Skylink, a wireless communication service delivered from various SkyOrbiter platforms. Including internet, Skylink is expected to fulfill a myriad of other services such as public protection, disaster relief and environmental monitoring. The benefits of such vastly influential technology includes large-area broadcasting, development of world applications and greater military communication. According to Quarkson, the aerial vehicles can be built at a low-cost and with rapid deployment in comparison to traditional satellites.

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