TALARIA System Supports British Antarctic Survey
TALARIA System Supports British Antarctic Survey
Eutelsat OneWeb Launches Trial Services
Low Earth orbit (LEO) services in Antarctica for British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a world-leading center for polar science and polar operations, have been launched by Eutelsat OneWeb.
"This has the potential to change the way we work and the type of science we can carry out."
Julius Rix, BAS
Since January 2024, the service has provided connectivity to the BAS operated Rothera Research Station in Antarctica. Communications and internet connectivity in Antarctica is currently limited to solutions offering at most 1-5 Mbps in both uplink and downlink, despite the significant number of crucial scientific research outposts in the region. Eutelsat OneWeb’s services will deliver significantly increased reliability and data-rates up to 120 Mbps.
In order to deliver services to the Antarctic region, Eutelsat OneWeb developed a proprietary system named TALARIA after the Latin word used to describe the ‘winged sandals’ of Mercury, God of communication. The innovative system includes a ground station in Chile along with a user terminal installed in Rothera Research Station 1,000 miles away. The technology will match the high data use needs of the scientific activities at the research outposts in Antarctica, along with the connectivity needs of the staff based at the stations.
The design of the TALARIA system was made possible thanks to the support of the European Space Agency (ESA) Sunrise Partnership Project as well as Comtech Telecommunications Corp. and Cobham Satcom, our partners for the development and implementation of the ground infrastructure solution.
Consistent high-speed, low latency connectivity has the potential to totally transform the activity at the stations and in the wider Antarctic region, for example by allowing scientists to better conduct their day-to-day activities by facilitating real-time support from scientific, technical or health teams around the world. It will also provide vital connectivity to help improve the welfare of the scientists, outside of working hours, as they are often deployed for 18 months at a time in one of the remotest and geographically challenging areas of the world.
“Knowing we have such an increase in bandwidth is a gamechanger for our communications connectivity, allowing transfer of big data files and giving us the opportunity to do live broadcast interviews from one of the remotest places on Earth," said Julius Rix, Head of Engineering at British Antarctic Survey. "This has the potential to change the way we work and the type of science we can carry out."
“The TALARIA system is an innovation to deliver dramatically increased bandwidth using LEO connectivity for the very hardest to reach parts of the world," said Valery Gineste, VP of Technology & Innovation at Eutelsat OneWeb. "This has been an exciting opportunity to create an entirely new remote connectivity system for Antarctica from concept to delivery inside 18 months.”