European Space Agency's satellite radio system is out of this world
The days of crackling radio stations, signal loss in tunnels and difficulties tuning to the right frequency could soon be a thing of the past. The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a satellite receiver and digital hard drive recorder for cars that allows users to pre-programme, record and play satellite radio as well as on-demand music and video. The ESA's system converts received satellite signals into digital files that are saved on a hard drive, like podcasts, so the programmes can be played back at any time and anywhere, avoiding the loss of signal associated with driving through tunnels. Instead of using new satellites and a network of ground-based transmitters, the system developed under the Ku-Band for Multimedia to Vehicles project uses existing television satellites coming to the end of their working lives. 'The satellites have done their duty for so many years and generated revenues, this extra life is a bonus and you can get them quite cheap,' said Rolv Midthassel, the coordinator of the project and Communications Engineer at the ESA. The experimental system has been in development for three years at the space agency and if commercialised would be the first in-car satellite radio service available to Europeans. 'The next step would be to make a product out of this but industry would have to take the initiative on this,' said Mr Midthassel. The ESA car radio system has been jointly developed with SES Astra, BMW, Deutsche Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Dornier Consulting, Deutsche Welle, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Institut für Rundfunktechnik, Technische Universität Braunschweig and TriaGnoSys.