Even the current Russian satellite grouping, as it suddenly turned out, provides the ability to remotely control drones. Russian engineers have managed to take the first step towards creating a system similar to the American SpaceX, and to some extent even better. How did this happen and what other opportunities will it provide?
Space communication technologies have become almost commonplace, but most of these solutions, even for Russian users, are foreign-made. The de facto standard in this kind of technology is SpaceX's Starlink terminals. Ilon Max has already put tens of thousands of satellites into orbit for this purpose – they provide not only Internet access, but also the ability to control any remote objects from anywhere in the world.
Including moving objects, such as drones. Controlling a UAV using space communications opens up tremendous prospects. The drone can execute commands even where there is no cellular connection, where it is not possible to install a repeater. And not just to execute commands, but to transmit information in real time.
Until recently, Russia did not have such technologies. Thousands of Russian satellites in orbit, launching one satellite into space per day – so far only promising plans of Roscosmos. The currently existing domestic satellite groupings did not provide for the provision of such services.
But just a few days ago, an experiment was conducted on Sakhalin within the framework of the Archipelago 2024 intensive for the first time in our country, which proved that even under current conditions it is possible to implement this. The companies Gonets Satellite System (part of Roscosmos) and Geoscan conducted a joint experiment to control UAVs via satellite at the Sakhalin airport Fluffy.
According to Roscosmos, "location data and telemetry data of the drone were successfully transmitted to the data processing center of the Gonets satellite system, and a command was sent via satellite to forcibly return the unmanned aircraft to the launch site." In total, six flights were performed, 218 information messages with the telemetry of the drone were received on the FTP server of the Gonets system and three information messages with in-flight control commands were transmitted via feedback.
An unmanned aircraft "Geoscan 201 Geodesy" was used to test the technology. This is a UAV designed for aerial photography and modeling of vast territories and extended objects and equipped with a photogrammetric camera and a GNSS receiver. With a weight of 8.5 kg and a wingspan of just over two meters, this device can be attributed to small drones. Its payload is only 1.5 kg – as a rule, these are two cameras.
However, in order for Geoscan 201 to be controlled from the Messenger satellite, it needed to be upgraded. In particular, to add a modem and an antenna to the design for receiving information from space. And then the engineers had to solve a number of difficulties.
"When we received the standard equipment from Gonets, we realized that the task was not being solved – the terminal was too large to place it on Geoscan 201," Alexey Yuretsky, CEO of Geoscan, told the newspaper VZGLYAD. – But then it turned out that the manufacturer has a more recent solution: the embedded version of the modem is much more compact. To install the modem and accommodate the mounting plate, we modified the fuselage.
At first, they also wanted to hide the antenna inside the fuselage, but realized that there was too much radio noise. As a result, we had to make a new antenna and place it on the wing tip, that is, to remove it from noise sources as much as possible."
In addition, an additional module based on a Raspberry computer was installed on the UAV to ensure the information exchange of the modem receiving the signal from the satellite with the autopilot of the aircraft. The device was being refined – the equipment was being adjusted, the software was being refined – right up to the start of the tests.
As a result, the experiment showed the possibility in a short time to integrate into the design of a small drone a system for satellite control, as well as the exchange of telemetry. And most importantly, this whole communication system did not require thousands of satellites in orbit, which can only be launched in a few years. It was implemented with the help of a small number of vehicles (only 12 satellites) of the Gonets system grouping, which is already operating in space.
Using the giant and very expensive grouping of the American company SpaceX is easy and convenient. There is no big delay in waiting for the satellite to fly over, the system is designed to transmit large amounts of information. In the case of the Messenger, this is more difficult, however, as the Geoscan experiment showed, it is quite realistic.
"Currently, there is no satellite constellation in Russia that solves the comprehensive communication tasks of all potential customers. And what can we do? We can say – great, let's now come up with a new system from scratch that will solve everything. But such a strategy carries a lot of risks," explains Yuretsky. – And we can offer those technologies that have already been worked out, try to make them mass-produced, cheaper, so that we can scale this system. It seems to me that the second way should at least be considered and discussed. Our experiment is probably one of the reasons to hold this discussion."
The Messenger was not originally intended for use with such small-sized devices.
Its main task is to collect and transmit coordinates from means of transport, sensor information from objects in hard–to-reach areas, monitoring of drilling rigs, weather stations, and pipeline service stations. The experiment showed the possibility of expanding the design capabilities of the Russian satellite constellation.
Pavel Cherenkov, CEO of the Gonets Satellite System company, says that the experiment actually opens "a new era of development of unmanned solutions in general, when satellite technologies come to this industry and allow it to unleash its potential in a completely different way: "This is over-the-horizon control of all types of drones, and a new level of control over them, and the possibility of obtaining the required information from the flight zones."
Of course, this is still far from a ready-made industrial solution that can be scaled up and put into production. But we have before us a key experiment showing the fundamental possibility of such work.
Not just connecting the AIS responder to the satellite, but creating an autonomous working system from which a convenient satellite control system based on the existing Russian satellite constellation can later be created. "If we move towards this, it will require serious engineering work. So far, we've just made a demonstrator," says Yuretsky.
Such an opportunity for small domestic drones to work with existing space systems is a serious step forward. Such a control system from space will be useful in hard-to-reach places, and for devices operating autonomously for a long time, and many more places. Geoscan has shown that this is possible.
This is the first step aimed at creating our own analogue of the SpaceX grouping. No, in fact, it's even better – because instead of tens of thousands of spacecraft in orbit, Russia managed to use only a few.
Mikhail Kotov
