![]() ![]() That means the ISS will never get very good reception even when in line-of-sight - it will either be very far away or out of the region of strongest signal. Also, TV transmission antennas are designed to emit the strongest signals horizontally to the horizon, not upward into space. The ISS orbits about 400 km above MSL, so line-of-sight is much further - perhaps 1000 miles, but at over 17,000 mph, the ISS would go in and out of a station's line of sight in just a few minutes. Official ESA Live Stream ESA Headquarters, Paris, France The 24 hour European Space Agency stream offers programmes on European space activities in a variety of languages. Beyond that, you are over the horizon (VHF/UHF is essentially line-of-sight) and signal strength gets pretty weak before you reach the horizon. Terrestrial TV is intended to serve a local area around the transmitter, typically 10s of miles, with perhaps 50 to 100 miles possible between a tall transmitter (100s of feet) and a tall "fringe" receiving antenna (maybe 50 ft). Different signals (digital vs analog) and different frequencies, but that's not the point here. It sounds like a question that the US House of Representatives could spend months investigating.Ĭan the ISS get the new digital air TV or satellite TV.Īs far as Digital over the air TV is concerned, it's the same as old-fashioned TV in that both are transmitted from terrestrial transmitters. Selecting the right TV viewing package (as pointed out in answer) might be a substantial challenge even for NASA.Still, it's some serious work to connect them. See this excellent answer to the question Do antennae on the ISS have to constantly move to maintain data links? There's even a video!Įdit: In the future a flat phased array antenna might do the trick nicely (for TV reception) and be cheaper as well as far faster in the "slewing". You'll need some more of the expensive articulated dish antennas to constantly track the "TV satellites" as the ISS orbits, as well as another place to put them, and more power and cables to connect them to. Lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, this mission carried 51 Starlink satellites, as well as the rideshare. For TDRS you just need to slew the dish to the next position since they are clustered in groups distributed around the Earth. SPACEX LAUNCHES FIRST STARLINK RIDESHARE MISSION OF 2022 - SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 Block 5 on Sunday, September 4 at 10:09 PM EDT (02:09 UTC on September 5). With a ~90 minute orbit you'd loose line-of-sight communications at irritating moments during 1 hour and many half-hour "shows". "TV satellites" in GEO would be regularly eclipsed by the Earth. NASA's TDRS satellites are at the same geosynchronous altitude as "TV satellites", and in fact are more "wobbly" (higher inclination) and yet are to the go-to solution for data and comms for the ISS. The real problems with satellite TV at least: This also implies access to other internet content as well. ![]() Several answers to Do astronauts get Netflix on ISS? indicate that there is access to "new stuff to watch" beyond what content astronauts may bring themselves. While Doppler (mentioned there) might or might not be an issue for an off-the-shelf commercial satellite TV box (I don't know) it could probably be fixed with a mod that NASA could easily manage. Answer is right, but I'll add some context as a supplement. ![]()
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