Date: On demandDuration: One hourPrice: Tax free Chris Rankin, Nevada’s chief information officer and information technology director, likes to say that the technology network is the foundation for his agency’s future. Rankin, who has spent more than 38 years at the NSS, should know how important a scalable, flexible and modern network is for the […]

Telecommunications  IEEE spectrum

Illustration: Sean Mccabe; Original Photo: Joshua Dalsimer Vanu Bose, founder, and John Chapin, CTO, of Vanu Inc. Software-defined radio is one of those promising but elusive ideas that’s been anticipated for quite some time. The concept is elegantly simple: get rid of the specialized electronics used to process radio signals and instead do everything with

Illustration: Chad Hagen Space seems empty and therefore the perfect environment for radio communications. Don’t let that fool you: There’s still plenty that can disrupt radio communications. Earth’s fluctuating ionosphere can impair a link between a satellite and a ground station. The materials of the antenna can be distorted as it heats and cools. And

For decades, the astronomical cost of launching a satellite meant that only government agencies and large corporations ever undertook such a herculean task. But over the last two decades or so, newer, commercial rocket designs that accommodate multiple payloads have reduced launch costs dramatically—from about US $54,000 per kilogram in 2000 to about $2,720 in