CNESMAG 82 - Satellite telecommunications : welcome to a new era

Few people imagine that it’s satellite telecommunications that first brought space into our daily lives. Today, there’s no programme on TV that isn’t beamed through a satellite, no text message that doesn’t make a detour via geostationary orbit and no positional fix that doesn’t use signals from constellations circling Earth thousands of kilometres above our heads. But this is just a start. In the hyper-connected world of the future, only satellites will be able to bring Internet services to everyone on the planet, not only so that people can communicate better but also to guarantee their safety and health, and to support many more applications yet to be invented.