Iran intends to cooperate with Russia in the area of aerospace after economic sanctions are lifted, to include satellites, weather satellites, and remote sensing devices, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Thursday.
"Iran is interested in our plans [new federal aerospace program], they want to find their place in the market of remote sensing devices. They want their own weather satellites, satellites and remote sensing devices," Rogozin told Rossiya-24 television.
A mysterious Russian satellite that squeezed next to two Intelsat satellites and alarmed company executives has an “extremely small” chance of a collision, a Russian space expert told state-run media.
Ivan Moiseyev, the head of Russia’s Space Policy Institute, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti in an Oct. 20 story that “the possibility of a collision or some kind of interference is extremely small.”
The Russian satellite, alternatively known as Luch or Olymp, launched in September 2014 and seven months later moved to a position directly between the Intelsat 7 and Intelsat 901 satellites, which are located within half a degree of one another in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator.
In late September, the satellite moved again, according to an analysis published Oct. 5 by Brian Weeden, technical adviser at the Secure World Foundation.
The satellite has now settled at 24.4 degrees west longitude, right next to the Intelsat 905 satellite at 24.5 degrees west, according to information available on the space tracking website n2yo.com, which republishes U.S. Defense Department data.
Moiseyev said the Luch “is simply a relay satellite, sending signals from spacecraft to Earth, for example from the International Space Station — we have communications problems there — and from one satellite to another.”
“In no way can it be an ‘aggressor,’” he told the state news agency. “Any satellite can make some clumsy maneuvers, but collisions are extremely rare.”
The statements appear to be the first comments from Russia about the satellite. The Space Policy Institute, also known as ICP, was established by the Russian space agency and other government agencies in 1993 as an independent and nonprofit research organization.
Europe and China are gaining the upper hand in the race to bounce perfectly secure messages off satellites in low Earth orbit.
One of the great benefits of quantum communication is the ability to send messages from one point in space to another with perfect security. Not so great is the fact that so-called quantum cryptography is limited to distances of around 100 kilometers.
That’s because over longer distances, photons tend to be absorbed by the glass in fiber-optic cables and by the atmosphere when beamed from one location to another. That causes errors that are too great for perfect privacy.
But there is a potential way around this–to send photons to an orbiting spacecraft, which then retransmits the message securely when it is over another part of the planet. That’s possible because the photons traveling straight up only have to negotiate a few tens of kilometers of the atmosphere before reaching space.
So it’s not surprising that governments all over the world are keen on exploiting space-based quantum cryptography. Indeed, last year we reported on a Chinese team that had successfully reflected individual photons off an orbiting satellite, to simulate a satellite sending photons to the ground.
The Chinese team said the demonstration was a crucial step toward space-based quantum cryptography. However, the ability to send single photons from orbit and receive them on the ground is not enough.
A key factor is the error rate in this process. If the error rate is above 11 percent, quantum cryptography does not work.
So an important unanswered question is whether the error rate is small enough.
Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Giuseppe Vallone at the University of Padova in Italy and a few pals. These guys have bounced polarized photons off a number of different satellites and measured the error rate in the photons that return to Earth.
And they have good news. They clearly show that the error rate can be made smaller than the critical threshold.
NSG Analysts have heard from several usually reliable industry sources that a major company, possibly “Google or Facebook,” could be announcing the launch of a very large constellation of satellites in the near future.
“Very large constellation” is defined as up to 1,600 small satellites. Based on information Parabolic Arc has received, the story seems to be true. Google appears to be pursuing a plan to provide global broadband services that is similar to a failed attempt by a company called Teledesic.
Why Google? Well, Facebook hasn’t shown any interest in advanced satellites or space technologies. Mark Zuckerberg’s company has been primarily focused on providing an information sharing platform on which it can sell ads and mine user data for profit. It’s not clear how a global broadband network would fit into the company’s plans.
Google, on the other hand, has shown a great interest in space through the Google Lunar X Prize and other activities.
