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Trials at New Mexico’s Spaceport Authority are using new
millimetre wave technology to deliver data from drones -
potentially 40 times faster than 4G.
The flight control centre New Mexico Spaceport Center where
Google has been testing solar-powered drones
The flight control office at the New Mexico Spaceport Center
where Google has been testing solar-powered drones. Google
is testing solar-powered drones at Spaceport America in New
Mexico to explore ways to deliver high-speed internet from the
air, the Guardian has learned.
In a secretive project codenamed SkyBender, the technology
giant built several prototype transceivers at the isolated
spaceport last summer, and is testing them with multiple
drones, according to documents obtained under public records
laws. In order to house the drones and support aircraft, Google
is temporarily using 15,000 square feet of hangar space in the
glamorous Gateway to Space terminal designed by Richard
Foster for the much-delayed Virgin Galactic spaceflights.
The tech company has also installed its own dedicated flight
control centre in the nearby Spaceflight Operations Center,
Twenty-two student teams are heading to California this
summer to test their design prototype at the world’s first
Hyperloop Test Track. More than 115 student engineering
teams representing 27 U.S. states and 20 countries
were at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas,
this weekend participating in SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod
Competition Design Weekend.
The teams presented their plans for the overall pod
design and were judged on a variety of criteria including
separate from the terminal.
Based out of the site near the town called Truth or Consequences,
Project SkyBender is using drones to experiment withmillimetre-
wave radio transmissions, one of the technologies that could
underpin next generation 5Gwireless internet access. High
frequency millimetre waves can theoretically transmit gigabits
of data every second, up to 40 times more than today’s 4G
LTE systems. Google ultimately envisages thousands of high
altitude “self-flying aircraft” delivering internet access around
the world.
However, millimetre wave transmissions have a much shorter
range than mobile phone signals. A broadcast at 28GHz, the
frequency Google is testing at Spaceport America, would fade
out in around a tenth the distance of a 4G phone signal. To
get millimetre wave working from a high-flying drone, Google
needs to experiment with focused transmissions from a so-
called phased array.
The SkyBender system is being tested with an “optionally
piloted” aircraft called Centaur as well as solar-powered
drones made by Google Titan, a division formed when Google
acquired New Mexico startup Titan Aerospace in 2014. Titan
built high-altitude solar-powered drones with wingspans of up
to 50 metres.
Emails between Spaceport America and Google project
managers reveal that the aircraft have exclusive use of the
Spaceport’s runway during the tests and will even venture
above the neighbouring White Sands Missile Range.
Google spent several months last summer building two
communication installations on concrete pads at Spaceport
America. Project SkyBender is part of the little-known Google
Access team, which also includes Project Loon, a plan to deliver
wireless internet using unpowered balloons floating through
the stratosphere.
Anderson expects Virgin Galactic to unveil its new SpaceShipTwo
at the Spaceport in February, and to begin flights there in 2018.
Google declined to comment.
Project Skybender: Google’s secretive 5G internet drone tests
revealed
22 Student Teams Will Test Pod Design at SpaceX Hyperloop Test Track
innovation and uniqueness of design; full Hyperloop
system applicability and economics; level of design detail;
strength of supporting analysis and tests; feasibility for
test tract competition; and quality of documentation and
presentation.
The Top 5 student teams for the design and build category
were:
Best Overall Design Award
MIT Hyperloop Team, Massachusetts Institute of
New Mexico Spaceport Authority, Mark Harris
New-Tech Magazine Europe l 15