China Starts Building SkyNet
From the Xichang Cosmodrome in southwest China at 09:43 Beijing time on May 9, the Long March-3B launch vehicle was successfully launched, which launched the experimental satellite Zhihui Tianwang-01 (Smart SkyNet-01) into orbit ). This event marks the beginning of the implementation of a large-scale project to create a global space Internet network, SkyNet.
The first satellite of the future network will serve as an experimental platform to test the operation of communication technologies from radio frequency to space laser to broadcast data in space along a beam from satellite to satellite. The higher orbit of the SkyNet constellation will increase signal delays compared to SpaceX’s Starlink network, but throughput should not suffer much.
In parallel with the SkyNet network, China will deploy two other constellations of communication satellites in space: GuoWang and G60 Starlink – both with 12 thousand satellites each. These will be networks in low Earth orbit, completely similar to Starlink. Subsequently, SkyNet networks in medium orbit will be combined with networks in low orbit. It is interesting to note that the ground-based system for tracking Chinese citizens with facial recognition is also called SkyNet, but the connection between the ground-based video surveillance system and the space-Internet network is currently unknown.
The Chinese authorities plan to use the SkyNet network to provide Internet access to remote and hard-to-reach regions of the country, as well as to develop the economy and society as a whole. In addition, the SkyNet network can be used to provide communications in case of natural disasters and other emergencies.
