International Space Station Upgrades Internet, Gets 600 Mbps Connection For Faster Chit-Chat

The International Space Station or ISS shares a ton of data that it collects with Earth, but its internet speeds was always quite low, until a few days ago when it received a considerable upgrade.

Reuters

The new upgrade doubles the internet speeds at which data can be sent and received, delivering 600 megabit-per-second or Mbps, as opposed to 300 Mbps previously. Just to put this into perspective, a standard Jio Fibre connection is around 100Mbps.

These upgrades will not only be beneficial for communication with the NASA team on Earth, but also while communicating for missions in Lower Earth Orbit as well as outer Solar System.

George Morrow, the acting center director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said, "NASA's communications networks play a pivotal role in every NASA mission, enabling data from human spaceflight, space and Earth science research missions and technological demonstrations to reach Earth for the benefit of humanity. This increase in data rate capability for the International Space Station underlines our commitment to provide high-quality operational services for NASA exploration missions today and in the future."

The ISS commenced its operations in the year 2000, that allowed astronauts to conduct research like the impact of space on the human body, bacteria and other organisms as well as the effects of microgravity, something that cannot be tested on Earth.

The data involved in these tests are usually quite extensive and require faster internet speeds to get it from space to the researchers on Earth. With the upgrade now scientists can take these researches to a whole new level with larger data content that can be seamlessly shared without worrying about data speeds.

Reuters

Data is shared using an array of ground-based antennas called the Space Network and a system of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). The satellites are positioned in a high orbit on top of specific locations to send data to the ground, which is then sent to various NASA research centres with the help of landlines where it's interpreted. This entire process is carried out with less than a second's delay.

To be compatible with the increased internet speeds, the global communications system got a major overhaul including a new digital ground architecture for Space Network as well as the circuits and bandwidth in the terrestrial data lines on the Earth-based components.