March 2021

How ESA helps South Africa share water fairly

Clustered at the edge of the Crocodile River in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, stand thousands of farms and small holdings growing fresh fruit and sugar cane. Water to irrigate the crops is taken from the river, but this slows its flow rate and leaves less for those downstream.

Wi-Fi on planes boosted by satellite constellation

Flight passengers will soon be able to connect to their families and colleagues on Earth via low-orbit telecommunications satellites. They will develop in-flight connectivity terminals that will work over OneWeb’s constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, as well as on geostationary satellite networks. OneWeb currently has 110 satellites in orbit but foresees a constellation of about 650.