Delivering LEO Connectivity for Polar Expeditions
Speedcast enables remote connectivity for the RV Polarstern in the Arctic.
By Timo Biemüller
Today’s leading scientists and researchers are in a race against time to minimize the impact of climate change. For those interested in a view of the future, the polar regions are offering a preview of what’s to come: According to the World Economic Forum, the Arctic in particular has warmed four times as much as the rest of the world since 1980.
Experts have compiled data that show that permafrost in the region is thawing at a rapid rate, opening broad sinkholes in the land and swelling the size of lakes. Glaciers that have stood for thousands of years are melting and increasing the speed of their descent into the sea as meltwater cushions them from the ground. At the same time, shoreline erosion is accelerating and, as the ice melts, it is raising the surface level and temperature of the oceans, on which so much of life depends.
Climate Research in the Arctic
Because of the visible acceleration of environmental changes in the Arctic, the region has become a laboratory for understanding climate change and researching ways to mitigate its effects. Thirty-nine research stations are currently operating in the Arctic, using a vast array of sensors and internet of things (IoT) technologies to study the changing ecosystem. Researchers gather precise measurements of everything from behavior of the ice to atmospheric composition and ozone levels.
Research takes place at sea as well. This is carried out on research vessels such as Polarstern, the flagship of Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Managed by Reederei F. Laeisz, the vessel averages 317 days at sea each year, covering approximately 50,000 nautical mi. Its 20,000-horsepower engines enable the ship to break through heavy ice, which has allowed it to deliberately lock itself into ice sheets for more than a year during the MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition, providing an opportunity for scientists to conduct fundamental research on the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and ecosystems.
Polarstern: Icon of German Polar Research
Typically operating in the Arctic in the summer months, the vessel carries a crew of 44 people living and working alongside 55 scientists and technicians. The nine scientific laboratories on board enable users to conduct key biological, geological, and geophysical, as well as glaciological, meteorological, chemical, and oceanographic research right from the heart of the region. In addition to conducting its own research, the Polarstern is a designated resupply vessel for AWI’s Neumayer Station, which has been investigating the Arctic for more than 40 years.
The immense amount of data collected by the Polarstern is too valuable to stay on board. In addition to research and ship operational data being stored in leading-edge onboard systems, where shipboard staff can access them, the data are also transmitted via satellite to AWI to power the research taking place in Germany. The data are also made available to national and international science organizations.
That process sounds simple enough—but the Arctic has long been a challenging environment for satellite.
LEO Connectivity for Remote Missions
For decades, most satellites have circled the Earth in geostationary orbit (GEO) above the equator. Because the surface of the Earth is curved, radio waves from GEO reach the poles from the side, not overhead. Passing through all that air weakens the signal, leading to interference, and a hill or iceberg in the wrong place blocks the signal completely.
A robust connectivity infrastructure is now imperative for Arctic operations and their real-time connectivity, not just for research but for crew welfare and safety. Low Earth orbit (LEO) connectivity as part of a comprehensive, hybrid service is one such solution. LEO satellites orbit the Earth at altitudes between 500 to 2,000 km, compared with 36,000 km for traditional GEO satellites. At that altitude above the equator, GEO satellites maintain a geosynchronous orbit, appearing stationary relative to a fixed point on Earth’s surface. In contrast, spacecraft in low Earth orbit travel at remarkable speeds of up to 7.8 km per second, rapidly traversing the sky.
To ensure continuous global coverage, LEO satellites operate in extensive constellations, often comprising hundreds or even thousands of satellites, ensuring multiple units are always overhead. Establishing reliable communication services from such rapidly moving satellites to a moving site such as a research vessel, particularly in harsh and remote environments, presents significant technical challenges, requiring sophisticated tracking, signal hand-off, and robust system design to maintain seamless connectivity.
The latest LEO satellites to enter the market offer high data rates at lower cost, often ranging from dozens to hundreds of megabits per second—ideal for vessels that must process masses of data from sensor to server and for internet access by scientists and crew.
In 2023, for example, Speedcast completed the first live deployment of Eutelsat OneWeb’s Maritime LEO service on the RV Polarstern, which offers 100+ Mbps of capacity with guaranteed enterprise-grade service levels and low latency due to the lower altitude of LEO satellites. Speedcast equipped the vessel with dual parabolic user terminals with advanced blockage mitigation capabilities, which deliver highly efficient, seamless high bandwidth connectivity even in challenging sea conditions. Built to withstand temperatures as low as -40° C, and equipped with an additional heater component, the terminal from hardware manufacturer Intellian is ideally suited to the Arctic’s below-freezing climate.
Since OneWeb operates in a polar orbit, its satellites are positioned to provide continuous service even in the far northern latitudes. In an email sent from the North Pole, the captain noted that although his ship had made many voyages to the location, this was the first time they had high-speed internet access, allowing them to enjoy communication in the remote region on this special occasion.
One Part of a Complex Solution
Researching in Arctic waters is not for the faint of heart. Storms and severe weather, equipment breakdowns in the cold, accidents, and medical emergencies pose constant risk to scientists and crew alike. While LEO services bring exciting benefits and options to Arctic connectivity, they operate at very high frequencies that can be impacted by snowfall and other factors. For all these reasons, it is rare that a vessel with critical operations would depend on just one form of connectivity.
This is one reason that the RV Polarstern was also outfitted with Starlink connectivity to complement its other communication systems. With a mega constellation of more than 6,000 satellites orbiting the Earth, Starlink is bringing reliable, high-speed internet to people no matter where they are. Speedcast delivered a seamless failover switching solution between the OneWeb and Starlink connectivity paths via its SIGMA network management platform, so the vessel never operated single-threaded. SIGMA also delivered important welfare connectivity services to Polarstern, with crew voucher options and access control capabilities to keep remote staff and crew connected during long voyages.
SIGMA offers expanded capabilities for vessels based on operating requirements. It can prioritize data traffic by type—giving highest priority, for example, to research data transmission, compared with email or text messaging. SIGMA is also cloud-native, running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which can provide users with secure direct access to AWS cloud resources for data storage and processing.
Assisting Vital Research
Speedcast’s innovative blend of multiple LEO and L-Band services via SIGMA on the RV Polarstern has proven to accelerate onboard connectivity. Through enterprise-grade connectivity, the researchers benefited from traffic prioritization, reduced latency, and enhanced data transmission, enabling them to make more informed decisions and explore new ways of presenting their critical research to a larger audience, for example, through live video streaming to social media channels.
Ultimately, these connectivity developments will accelerate advancements in our understanding of climate change in the Arctic. With new connectivity resources, courtesy of Speedcast, the RV Polarstern will embark on many more projects in the future.