'We've bought the wrong satellites': UK tech gamble baffles experts(theguardian.com) |
'We've bought the wrong satellites': UK tech gamble baffles experts(theguardian.com) |
So the issue would be "how much more expensive is it going to be to equip these satellites with those clocks?" There might well be enough other uses for accurate clocks on these to make upgrading whatever they do have worth it. They might not be that expensive anymore.
Apologies for any misunderstandings im suffering here.
I see different size estimates for these satellites but none of them suggest it would be hard for them to spend 10 watts on an atomic clock and 50 watts on a constant transmission. Am I forgetting something?
> radio transmitter
You can't just slap on a significantly simpler antenna?
> clocks
I have no idea here.
I mean it's hard not to laugh.
All the major GNSS are herculean focused efforts over decades and the UK leadership reckons a ducktape solution will do.
They would be better off just negotiating (paying) access to military encryption on GPS and Galileo and calling it a day. Redundant encrypted is probably miles better than improvised something anyway
Times have changed though, and nearly all the components are off-the-shelf now. If you already have the capability to launch a satellite, adding GNSS capabilities is a small extra step of adding an atomic clock and an antenna. All the signal generation can be software defined. All the complexity can live in models on the ground.
Sure, some of the 'high power anti-jam directional antenna' bits require more hardware, but the basics do not.
That's where the ducktape comes in I guess? (Just kidding)
I mean yeah GPS is ancient tech. But actually getting the required 24 or whatever satellites into orbit (or retrofitting) and getting the receiver tech into enough hands to get any kind of traction is still a sizable challenge.
... to include atomic operations.