This article was taken from the September 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
This is the radio anechoic chamber at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen. It's where the European Space Agency (ESA) calibrates radio antennae for its satellites -- and it's completely echo free.
The foam spikes, filled with carbon powder, absorb radio wave reflections. "Its properties must be such that the room does not exist," says Sergey Pivnenko, associate professor of the university's department of electrical engineering. As engineers project frequencies as low as 400 megahertz at each antenna, they need to know that all reflections are being suppressed.
The ESA's Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity Earth Explorer mission is currently monitoring the planet's climate with antennae configured in the chamber. The antenna for the Biomass mission, which will measure the weight of the world's forests when it launches in 2020, has just successfully finished its first testing phase. These satellites can have as many as 100 antennae that need calibrating, but the first one -- which determines how the others are configured -- is tested in here.
Working in the chamber can be a strange experience. "When you're inside it's very quiet," says Pivnenko. "Your mobile phone doesn't work in there so nobody can reach you. We have a policy that if somebody is working in there then we check on each other."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
