WASHINGTON
- When Mobile Satellite Ventures was issued the first-ever U.S. Federal
Communications Commission license in 2003 for its concept of creating hybrid
satellite and ground-based communications systems, the company already had been
working on a slew of related inventions it planned to capitalize on.
So far, 25
of about 100 inventions have been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office, the most recent of which includes a hybrid communications system for
multiple rovers - or eventually humans - exploring
the Moon or Mars.
The
inventions are based on Mobile Satellite Ventures' Ancillary Terrestrial
Component (ATC) concept of combining satellite signals with signals from
terrestrial repeaters for two-way
data and voice communication.
"The
fundamental concept of the ATC has created an opportunity for significant
innovation," said Peter Karabinis, senior vice president and chief technology
officer with Mobile Satellite Ventures of Reston, Va.
In early
October, the company received three patents. By mid-November it expects to have
received three more, Karabinis said.
The most
far-reaching of the innovations is a concept for establishing an extraterrestrial
communications system that, among a variety of scenarios, envisions
a satellite orbiting another planet, a base station on that planet and
repeaters to relay data to different points on the planet or back to the
satellite. That extraterrestrial network also would be able to communicate with
Earth-based ground stations and a satellite orbiting Earth.
Lon Levin,
co-inventor, with Karabinis, of the extraterrestrial communications concept,
said the idea was hatched in 2004 after a visit to NASA and a discussion about
the Spirit
and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars in January that year.
"When we
got back to the office, we imagined a future architecture that would enable
communications as we expanded our presence on a planet," said Levin, then a
senior officer with Mobile Satellite Ventures who also had co-founded XM
Satellite Radio. "This architecture would not only provide efficiently
expandable communications on the surface of a planet, it would also provide an
efficient and effective means to have many simultaneous communications between
Earth and other planets."
Karabinis
and Levin applied for the patent in April 2004.
Karabinis
acknowledges the concept is futuristic and not likely to materialize anytime
soon, but he said parts of the innovation might be applied sooner to
Earth-based communications. Mobile Satellite Ventures is seeking to expand the
extraterrestrial communications patent to Earth-based systems, a process likely
to take two years, he said.
One example
is their concept for an extraterrestrial communications system that would have
the ability to sense what frequencies other nearby ATC components are using in
order to avoid interference. These adjustments currently are done manually in
Earth-based communications systems.
"With these
tweaks that we incorporate into the space-based mutation, if you will, of the
ATC, it is now becoming apparent - after the fact - that they may have
terrestrial value as well," Karabinis said.
Mobile
Satellite Ventures received two other patents in October, one for a signal
processing algorithm that will reduce the processing time for GPS position
location, whether or not ATC is involved, and another for the technique used in
the handover from satellite to a terrestrial receiver without interruption to
the user.
To Levin,
who left Mobile Satellite Ventures in 2005 and now is president of
SkySevenVentures in Washington, which helps develop primarily space-based new
technologies, the extraterrestrial communications patent symbolizes innovation
that could energize the commercial space industry.
"A key to
our future in space is creating a commercially sustainable economy in space,"
Levin said. "By allowing patents such as ours, the United States is taking
another step toward that goal. I hope more will follow."
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