The future is a satellite with a myriad of Australian faces plastered to it, smiling down at the Earth, forever, until we are all gone and it is nothing but space junk. Well, strap yourselves in, folks, because the future is now.
NBN’s second satellite, Sky Muster II, is scheduled to blast into space on 5 October 2016.
The event will look a little like this, the launch of the Sky Muster back in 2015:
Taking off from French Guiana Space Centre in South America, it is set to orbit 36,000km into the sky and is one of the world’s largest communications satellites, weighing in at 6,400kgs. Sky Muster II will provide additional data capacity to support the delivery of the company’s satellite broadband service.
NBN says the technology will help bridge Australia’s digital divide for around 400,000 homes and businesses in regional and remote Australia by providing them with better access to distance online education and healthcare services — as well as the ability to run more efficient agribusinesses from our outback farms.
NBN had also revealed the first glimpse of the artwork that will be printed on the nosecone of the rocket, which will launch Sky Muster II into orbit.
The mosaic-style image is made up of more than 700 Australians who won the chance to include an image of their face on the satellite. NBN says it represents “the millions of people in every corner of Australia which will be connected to the NBN network.”
“This is an enormous project and we are doing our best to deliver the NBN Sky Muster service as fast as we can,” says Julia Dickinson, NBN’s Satellite Architect, “but reaching all corners of the country will take some time.”
NBN says the Sky Muster satellites will bring the service closer to it’s goal of “connecting all Australians”, with the rollout “designed to ensure that everyone has access to fast broadband by 2020”.