地球轨道似乎突然变得空前繁忙

In may 1999 a group of researchers from the Technical University of Berlin launched an unusual satellite. At a time when most of the machinery in orbit weighed thousands of kilograms, tubsat was a petite 45kg. A box that measured 32cm on each side, it carried three video cameras, the idea being to test whether such a titchy spacecraft could capture useful imagery of Earth. The researchers cited low mass, and the resultant low costs, as the benefits of such comparatively tiny satellites. They promised to open up “new market areas” for Earth observation.

柏林工业大学的一个研究小组在1999 年5 月发射了一颗不同寻常的卫星。当时，在地球轨道上运行的航天器大多重达数千公斤，这颗名为TUBSAT 的卫星却很娇小，仅重45 公斤。它是一个边长32 厘米的箱子，载有三台摄像机。研究人员想用它来测试如此微型的航天器能否捕捉到有用的地球影像。他们指出，这类相对微小的卫星的优势是质量轻，因而成本也低，有望为地球观测开辟“新的市场领域”。

It took around 15 years for them to be proved right. A few such “smallsats”, sometimes called nanosats or CubeSats, were launched every year in the decade up until 2014, when numbers spiked. Planet Labs, a Californian company founded by ex-Nasa engineers, launched 33 smallsats that year, each weighing just a few kilos. Planet’s satellites are spiritual successors of tubsat, designed to gather imagery of the Earth’s surface. The firm sells its customers images from around 150 active satellites it has in orbit.

他们的想法用了大约15 年才得以证实。2014 年之前的十年内，每年都有几颗这类“小型卫星”(也叫“微纳卫星”或“立方卫星”)被送入轨道，2014 年的发射数量更是激增。由前美国宇航局工程师在加州创立的美国公司行星实验室(Planet Labs)在那一年就发射了33 颗小型卫星，每颗只有几公斤重。这些卫星继承了TUBSAT 的精神，专门用于收集地球表面影像。目前，该公司通过约150 颗活跃的在轨卫星来收集图像，卖给客户。

Planet Labs is an industry leader. The cost of making and launching satellites has tumbled, enabling an array of new space-based businesses to emerge. In the past year smallsats have been launched that can use radar to peer through clouds or darkness. Others watch for illegal shipping activities and yet more are built to service or move around other satellites in orbit. Perhaps the most outlandish venture is a rescue satellite, designed to pull other satellites down to safety if something goes wrong, to avoid catastrophic collisions with neighbours.

行星实验室是行业领头羊。制造和发射卫星的成本已大幅下降，一系列太空新业务因而浮现。过去一年发射的小型卫星中，有些可利用雷达穿透云层或黑暗进行观测，也有些被用于监测非法航运活动，更多的是为了维护或移动其他在轨卫星。其中最稀奇的也许是一颗救援卫星，当其他卫星出现故障时可将它们拖至安全位置，避免与相邻卫星发生灾难性碰撞。

Much of the recent attention has focused on the internet-connection constellations in low Earth orbit proposed by SpaceX and OneWeb. These have long been planned, and the billions of dollars required to install them are feeding the entire market.

最近备受关注的是SpaceX 和OneWeb 计划建设的提供高速互联网服务的近地轨道卫星网络。这些项目计划已久，部署它们所需的数十亿美元资金正令整个市场受惠。

Many of the capabilities of the new smallsats already existed, but mostly as government projects or as secretive intelligence operations. America has long sought to inhibit the commercial development of radar satellites, so powerful are their surveillance properties. Military radar satellites, which bounce radio waves off the surface of the Earth in order to build up a detailed picture of it, were said to be capable of detecting enemy submarines by measuring the tiny disturbances that their wakes left in the curvature of the surface of the ocean.

这些新式小卫星的许多功能早已存在，只不过以往主要被用于政府项目或秘密情报行动。美国早就在试图压制雷达卫星的商业开发，因为它们的侦察性能非常强大。军用雷达卫星接收从地球表面反射的无线电波，以此绘制出详细图像，据说能通过测量潜艇尾迹对洋面曲率造成的微小干扰来探测敌方潜艇。

Payam Banazadeh, the boss of Capella Space, a startup based in San Francisco and founded in 2016, says his firm will use smallsats to work similar magic. Capella’s satellites will use radio waves, rather than light, to create images of the surface of the Earth. Mr Banazadeh says that his smallsats will be able to measure the volume of oil-storage tanks, for example, which are often open-topped to avoid fire risks, simply by pinging a radar beam into them. The first operational satellite is intended to launch this year, one of a planned constellation of 36. A competitor, Finnish company iceye, already has satellites in orbit gathering data.

总部位于旧金山的创业公司卡佩拉空间(Capella Space)创建于2016 年，老板帕亚姆·巴纳扎德赫(Payam Banazadeh)表示公司将运用小型卫星施展类似的魔法。卡佩拉的卫星将利用无线电波而非光线来创建地球表面图像。巴纳扎德赫举例说，为避免起火风险，储油罐的顶部通常是敞开的，卡佩拉的小型卫星可以向油罐中发射雷达波束来测量其体积。卡佩拉的首颗运营卫星计划于今年发射，计划总共发射36 颗。其芬兰竞争对手ICEYE 已经发射了轨道卫星用于收集数据。

Capella relies on a host of new space businesses as suppliers. Blue Canyon Technologies, founded in 2008, will provide small thrusters that allow the satellites to be pointed at specific spots on Earth. A company called Phase Four, founded in 2015, will provide tiny ion drives that will allow Capella’s satellites to adjust their altitude as needed. This will let the firm capture a wider variety of imagery.

卡佩拉依赖一系列新兴太空企业供货。成立于2008 年的蓝峡科技公司(BlueCanyon Technologies)将提供能让卫星指向地球特定区域的小型推进器。成立于2015 年的Phase Four 将供应微型离子驱动器，让卡佩拉的卫星能根据需要调整运行高度。这样卡佩拉就能获得更多样化的影像。

Another new firm, Hawkeye360, takes a different approach. Instead of pinging the surface of the Earth with radio waves, it listens for any that are being emitted by activity down below. This kind of orbital signal sniffing also used to be the domain of governments. But smallsats have advanced to the point where Hawkeye can deploy clusters of three radio-frequency sensing satellites to pick up weak signals from the ground. The company says its primary service will be maritime surveillance, looking for anomalous radio signals such as a fishing vessel turning off its automated identification tracker near a marine protected zone. The stated purpose is to stop illegal fishing and keep ports secure, but it is easy to see how the smallsats could be used to curb oceanic migration too. Hawkeye’s first cluster of satellites has been in orbit since December 2018.

另一家新公司鹰眼360(Hawkeye360)则另辟蹊径。它不是向地球表面发射无线电波，而是监听地面活动发出的无线电波。这种绕轨嗅探信号的活动以往也是政府的专属项目。但小型卫星技术的发展令鹰眼可部署三颗一组的射频感应卫星集群来接收来自地面的微弱信号。该公司表示自己的主要服务将是海事监控，探测异常的无线电信号，例如渔船在海洋保护区附近关闭自动识别跟踪器。虽然公开宣称的功能是阻止非法捕鱼和确保港口安全，但不难看出这种小型卫星也可用于遏制海上非法移民。鹰眼的第一批卫星群自2018 年12 月开始入轨运行。

The data deluge

数据洪流

All of these new forms of imaging generate huge volumes of data—terabytes a day, enough that getting it down to the ground for processing becomes its own problem. Some companies want to reduce the amount of data they send back by processing some of it up in space. Barry Matsumori, a space-industry veteran, is boss of Bridgesat, a company that has developed a tiny, powerful laser, which can be embedded in spacecraft and which can beam data down to ground stations at extremely high bandwidths. iceye is one of its first customers. Bridgesat’s first ground station, in California, is already in operation, and more in Italy and Sweden are on their way. The plan is to have ten around the world.

所有这些新型成像技术每天都会产生数以TB 计的海量数据，将这些数据下载到地面做分析就成了难题。一些公司希望能在太空中处理部分数据，从而减少发回地面的数据量。航天业资深人士巴里·松森(Barry Matsumori)是Bridgesat 公司的老板，该公司开发出了一种强大的微型激光装置，可嵌入航天器中，以极高的带宽将数据传输到地面站。ICEYE 是其首批客户之一。Bridgesat 在加州的第一个地面站已投入运营，意大利和瑞典的地面站也在建设中。该公司计划在全球建立十个地面站。

The firm has competition from Amazon, which just announced its own backbone service for data out of orbit and into its data centres, called aws Ground Station. Capella is an early customer of the service, which uses radio waves rather than lasers to get data down from orbit. As with Amazon’s cloud-computing business, the idea with Ground Station is to invest in plenty of expensive infrastructure and then charge startups only for what they use, making it easier and more affordable to run a business up in space.

Bridgesat 面临来自亚马逊的竞争，后者刚宣布推出从轨道向它的地面数据中心(名为AWS 地面站)传输数据的支柱型服务。该服务通过无线电波而非激光将数据从轨道传回地面，卡佩拉是它的早期客户。与亚马逊的云计算业务一样，AWS 地面站的思路也是先投资打造大量昂贵的基础设施，然后向创业公司按服务使用量收费，让经营太空业务变得更便捷也更便宜。

Managing all those extra satellites gets tricky when the companies launching them have to get their orbits perfect the first time. Currently, companies get only one shot. D-Orbit, an Italian company, has built a “carrier” satellite that is designed to boost already-launched smallsats to their correct configuration.

管理所有这些新增的卫星成了棘手难题，因为这些太空企业必须在第一次发射时就把卫星完美送进轨道。目前它们只有一次机会。但意大利公司D-Orbit 已成功制造了一颗“运载”卫星，用于将已发射的小型卫星推至正确的位置。

Perhaps the most futuristic new problem for the space business is the risk of debris. The concern is that, with so many new satellites in orbit operated by so many different companies, the chance of losing control of one goes up. A collision could be disastrous, producing a wave of debris with a high chance of wiping out other satellites, potentially crippling the whole commercial low-Earth orbit ecosystem at a stroke. Astroscale, a Japanese company, is tackling this problem by building a prototype craft capable of being launched at short notice in order to grab any malfunctioning satellite and pull it down into the atmosphere where it will burn up before it can collide with anything. The “rescue” craft will use computer vision to lock onto the out-of-control satellite and match velocity with it, then latch onto it magnetically. The company, which has raised $132m in the past few years, is planning a demonstration of its technology next year.

也许太空业务最具未来主义色彩的新问题是太空碎片。人们担心的是，有那么多公司的那么多新卫星在轨道中运行，令其中某颗卫星失控的风险加大。卫星碰撞的后果是灾难性的，所产生的碎片极有可能横扫其他卫星，可能一下子令整个商业近地轨道生态系统瘫痪。为解决这个问题，日本公司Astroscale 正在建造一款航天器原型，它能在有需要时即刻发射入轨，捕获发生故障的卫星并将其拉入大气层，让它在与任何物体碰撞前燃烧殆尽。这款“救援”航天器将利用计算机视觉锁定失控的卫星并保持与之相同的速度，再利用磁力捕获它。该公司在过去几年已融资1.32 亿美元，计划在明年演示这一技术。

Earth’s orbits suddenly look busier than ever before. Companies are going into space because it offers a different vantage point, allowing them to gather valuable new, previously-unaffordable information. tubsat’s “new market areas” are at last open for business.

地球轨道似乎突然变得空前繁忙。企业涌进太空，因为那里提供了与别处不同的有利位置，便于它们收集以往对它们而言太过昂贵却极具价值的新信息。当年TUBSAT 昭示的“新市场领域”而今终于敞开了大门。