When the Clinton administration set out to auction off slices of the radio spectrum, officials had no idea what telecommunications technologies would cross the FCC's transom. And little did they know that they would receive a proposal that looked like a satellite communications service but was really a new balloon-driven terrestrial service in disguise.
A stealthy DC-based operation called Sky Station International is in the throes of carving out its own 1-GHz niche in the communications world amid criticism from satellite service providers and communications consultants that their plan just won't fly.
"There's a tremendous amount of technology in something like Sky Station ... but if it's only a great product except for when clouds get between you and the [platform], then it's not convenient," said Roger Rusch, president of TelAstra.
Nonetheless, the company has the backing of several large international telecommunications and aerospace firms including Italy's Alanea Aerospazio and Britain-based CSF Thompson, along with the recent signing of Credit Suisse First Boston as a financial consultant. The company also garners attention for its high-profile board, which counts as members former Reagan Secretary of State Alexander Haig, his son Alex, and a well-known regulatory lawyer and transsexual, Martine Rothblatt.
What Sky Station bids to do is offer wireless telecommunications services over the newly opened millimeter wave spectrum to laptop- and handheld-clad netizens at speeds ranging from 64 Kbps to 2 Mbps - all from a solar-powered platform suspended 70,000 feet above the earth by helium-filled dirigibles "moored" in place with the help of propulsion system powered by solar panels and fuel cells.
But for all the attention focused on the use of balloons or the opinion that the spectrum Sky Station seeks - real estate in the neighborhood above 40 GHz - can be inhospitable to telecommunications services, folks are still missing the point, says DeWayne Hendricks. CEO of Warp Speed Imagineering and a member of Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, Hendricks believes the communications aspect of Sky Station is a no-brainer. "Look at how we're communicating with Mars - that's taking 5 watts," he explained. "You don't need a lot of power for 70,000 feet."
In all, a single Sky Station platform will generate 157 kilowatts of power, 15 of which will be used for running the communications system. The rest will be used to keep each station in place and operating. This task of station keeping had been the company's obsession. Its initial plans called for a Corona Ion engine, a new plasma-propulsion device that would run on a combination of solar power and fuel derived from the atmosphere. Then a bit of reality crept in: Developing and tuning the engine seemed to be working against the simultaneous effort of pulling together the communications technology in time for the first launch at the end of 1999.
So Sky Station scuppered the ion engine. "We realized we're not a propulsion company," said Paul Mahon, senior vice president and general counsel for Sky Station. "Using something uncool that works and improving it was the better way to go."
That "uncool" way could prove to be the missing link for stratospheric systems which historically have had problems staying aloft. Where satellites rely on a combination of their own momentum and the pull of Earth's gravity to stay in orbit, stratospheric systems are mired in the planet's atmosphere - too low to take advantage of these forces.
Satellite-keeping technology has historically had to depend on human ingenuity - or at least a willingness to put up with a few bumps here and there. Wilbur Pritchard, president of W. L. Pritchard and Associates, recalls a broadcasting service in Indiana that relied upon a plane to keep its television platform aloft. "It brought television into homes, but it had to come down after a while to refuel," said Pritchard, who has studied a number of stratospheric systems.
Others have also tried balloons. Pritchard remembers a Nigerian system from the 1970s where stations - located 20,000 feet in the air - were tethered in place by cables, a system which created a hazard. "There were accidents. Airplanes crashed into the cables," he said. "It's like a collision with a piano string - cut the wings right off."
And "everybody has used propellers and thrusters," he added. And they've failed.
The failures of balloon-borne systems - and people's memories of them - work against Sky Station. But Mahon points to the fact that long-term balloon stations are launched all the time to monitor weather and other functions. "It's not a problem," he said.
The new engine that will keep Sky Station platforms running in place will consist of several proprietary technologies from the light-weight mixture of materials used in the propellers to the engine to the fuel system. Power will come from "ultra light weight, efficient" solar panels which will cover the skin of the balloon. These panels will generate the energy for the station as well as excite water molecules for the night-time fuel source - fuel cells.
The move away from the ion engine won Sky Station some coveted approval. "Wall Street liked it when we switched," Mahon said. That switch signaled the financial community that Sky Station had grown up a bit, and was getting serious about its telecommunications platform instead of spending its time - and money - developing an untested propulsion technology.
But whether this translates into a viable telecommunications system is still to be worked out. For now, the communications platform's future lies in the upcoming present and a "before-October" test run at full altitude over the New Mexico desert.
