Book 3, Question 88
Why Do Satellites Help Phones?
Some phone signals hop up to space! A satellite is like a radio tower that floats high above Earth, and it can see a huge patch of the planet at once. The satellite receives a call or a burst of data, and beams it back down to a dish or phone far away.
From the book
Page from A Million Whys Book 3
More fun facts
- Iridium, the original satellite phone system, sent its first satellite into orbit in 1997.
- Its satellites cover the whole globe from low orbit, about 780 kilometers (485 miles) up, and pass data between each other.
- Satellite phone service can reach places with no normal phone signal, like remote mountains.
- A phone company made a live video call by satellite from a mountain in Wales where there was no other signal.
- Starlink has hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit that now link with phone networks in several countries.
- NASA's tiny satellites named Alexander, Graham and Bell showed that an ordinary smartphone could run a satellite in space.
Questions kids ask
Can phones work with no cell towers nearby?
Some can, by connecting to satellites in orbit, which can reach places with no normal signal.