zlacker

>>duck+(OP)
The date of the video is the most impressive to me here. It says “Sept. 30, 2021” both as the date of the article and the date of the video. If this is not a mistake that means they managed to deliver the video from the hurricane to the internet in less than 24 hours.

Why is this impressive? Either they beamed it out through satelites, which is notoriously hard from an unstable platform on big waves, or they recovered the saildrone and obtained the footage directly which is equally impressive in or around a hurricane.

All around if the dating of the footage is correct it is very impressive to me.

>>krisof+79
Based on the photo from the NASA website ([1]), they use a Thales Satellite modem ([2]). My best guess it's VesseLINK 700 ([3]) that uses Iridium Certus constellation ([4]) and costs around $8K ([5]).

Key Features:

* Robust, Light-Weight Communications for at Sea Operations

* Certus 700 Services (352 kbps Up/704 kbps Down & 256 kbps Streaming Capable)

*100% Global Satellite Coverage and Low Latency for Critical Data and Voice Communications

1. https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/wp-content/uploads/s...

2. https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/market-specific-solut...

3. https://www.thalesgroup.com/sites/default/files/database/doc...

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...

5. https://seatech.systems/product/thales-vesselink-700-for-iri...

>>krasin+Ja
Just stick a Starlink antenna on it, dummies. /s

>>moffka+mY
Noting the satire marker, I’ll just say for completeness: Starlink consumes 100W continuously to operate its phased array beam and the computation requires to drive it. That’s too much power for a sail drone.

>>ttul+791
It's really not. Assuming your power source has the required amperage, short, infrequent bursts are much more effective than continuous operation. In embedded systems, it's all about duty cycle, and by that metric, Starlink blows the Thales modem out of the water.

The Thales VesseLink modem they used consumes 65W nominal/120W maximum. It offers a connection speed of a couple hundred kbps, so sending up a video file of a fixed size will require it to be on for quite a while - Assuming 200 kbps average, and a 360 MB video, that's 4 hours of uploading or 260 Watt-hours. Also, it's 12x9x2", and weighs 7.5 lbs; this is a boat not a hobby quadcopter. 260 Watt-hours is a lot; that's like 3 laptop batteries, but that's still smaller than the modem itself.

Starlink does consume 100W, but offers a connection speed of about 200 Mbps. The 360 MB video upload could complete in 14.4 seconds, which consumes 100 W * 14.4 seconds / 3600 seconds/hour = 0.4 Watt-hours. It is significantly larger, and it would probably have a harder time handling rough seas (not to mention saltwater intrusion), but that's a lot less power.

Whichever modem you're using, you'd want to turn it on infrequently.

Edit: The Saildrone product brief is here:

https://assets.website-files.com/5beaf972d32c0c1ce1fa1863/61...

It describes a 23' or 7m boat. The 33'/10m larger version has 300W continuous sensor power/2kW peak available from the solar panels, which appear to be of a comparable size to those on the Saildrone.

>>LeifCa+Fh1
This particular saildrone seems to be a larger model: 72' long.