The soaring goal of Elon Musk’s Starlink and other satellite internet projects is to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet across the globe. But there are still some big questions that need to be answered — including how to build a resilient, secure network in space.
To examine such questions, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) researchers at Virginia Tech have partnered with the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom to build the world’s first hardware-in-the-loop test bed that emulates the changing connectivity of a mega satellite constellation at scale. The researchers introduced the test bed at an intercontinental workshop July 12-13.