Marie Piasecki, Jan Budroweit
The fifth IEEE Space Hardware and Radio Conference (SHaRC) will take place as part of the 2024 IEEE Radio & Wireless Week (RWW) in San Antonio on 21–24 January. Since SHaRC is a relatively new co-located conference of RWW, we are including a short introduction to SHaRC.
Space has always fascinated people. Recent activities, especially in low-Earth orbit (LEO), show an increased interest in satellite systems and constellations for a wide variety of purposes. If it’s Earth observation, commercial services, Internet access from space, or even educational activities, the exponential growth of satellites being deployed into LEO is breathtaking. There is an obvious reason for this: while accessing space was extremely expensive in the last decade, prices to launch payloads and satellites into space have dropped significantly so that even smaller businesses can afford the launch costs [1]. Figure 1 illustrates this trend, and, in particular, routine launch companies, such as Rocket Lab Electron and SpaceX with their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, have had a huge impact on the pricing of launching satellites and payloads into space.
Figure 1. Evolution of LEO launch costs (price per kilogram of payload) from 1961 to 2020. (Source: [1].)
Along with the price drop in launch costs comes more risk acceptance, and we see a high number of entrepreneurs and start-ups for new businesses in space. This trend depends on advances in RF and millimeter-wave technologies, especially when we talk about the most attractive commercial service: providing data transmission at higher bandwidth capabilities and data rates to users.
Starting in 2017, the IEEE Topical Workshop on Internet of Space (TWIOS) was created as a special event within RWW. This created a platform within the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society to exchange and collaborate on technologies relevant to these space users. In 2020, TWIOS was finally transformed into a full subconference of RWW, and SHaRC was born. For four years, we have been building an excellent technical program with high-quality papers and are looking to keep growing and expanding our activities as a part of RWW 2024. The feedback we received from the last few years also allowed us to create a dedicated semisocial event, called the “MTT Space Night,” which combines presentations and a panel discussion from experts with light snacks and beverages for the audience.
For 2024, SHaRC follows a specific theme, including a dedicated Sunday workshop and an interactive panel discussion including a quiz during the MTT Space Night, which will be held on Tuesday evening. This year’s theme will be “Advanced Ground Station Networks and Services.” Join this annual event with interesting discussions from experts in their field. You can actively join and take a quiz at the end and potentially even win a small prize.
We’re looking forward to a great in-person e vent in 2024 and being able to see all of you MTT Space People again at the fifth edition of SHaRC in San Antonio.
[1] “Cost of space launches to low Earth orbit.” Our World in Data. Accessed: Jun. 22, 2023. [Online] . Available: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-space-launches-low-earth-orbit
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3314021