After technical problems, Russia has postponed the launch of a rocket with 38 satellites from the Baikonur spaceport (Kazakhstan) until this Monday. According to this, the launch vehicle of the type “Soyuz 2.1a” will bring the satellites from 18 countries, including Germany, into space. The Russian space agency Roskosmos had surprisingly canceled the start, which was initially planned for Saturday, then postponed it to Sunday and now to March 22nd. (Also Read: “Bitcoin is doomed, and miners are counterfeiters”)
Roscosmos did not provide any information about the exact causes for the shift. “The reasons are technical, something like that happens in practice,” said a spokesman for Roskosmos TV on Saturday. Roskosmos boss Dmitri Rogozin later emphasized that the launcher itself was in perfect condition.
Elsa-d is supposed to collect satellite junk
According to Russian sources, the satellites also include a Japanese device called Elsa-d, which is said to be the first to collect scrap from, for example, disused satellites. In view of the vast amount of space junk, it serves sustainability in the cosmos, it was said. The Technical University of Berlin reportedly has several radio satellites on board the mission.
Many of the space bodies from the individual countries, including Saudi Arabia and South Korea, are used for earth exploration and are supposed to send images and data from the planet to ground stations. According to Roskosmos, these are smaller satellites in different formats with a mass of up to 200 kilograms.
They were said to be placed in different orbits. The countries represented also include Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, Hungary, Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain.
Internet usage in Germany is increasing rapidly
Surfing, streaming, playing: In the pandemic, people use the Internet much more intensively. This can be seen in the data volume – on landline and mobile.
The data volume used on the Internet has continued to skyrocket. In 2020 it was estimated at 76 billion gigabytes and thus 16 billion higher than in 2019, according to figures from the Federal Network Agency, which are available to the dpa. It’s about the landline internet, i.e. the connections at home or in the office.
Per connection, it was around 175 gigabytes per month (2019: 142). The Bonn authority justified the development with the corona pandemic, which has changed user behavior – people are more at home and surf the net or stream films, also because there is a lack of opportunities to go out.
Volume used multiplied since 2015
However, the trend has been going up for several years – in 2018 the growth in data volume of around 30 percent was even higher than in 2019 (plus 27 percent). A look back to illustrate the rapid increase: In 2015, German citizens used an average of less than a quarter of the data volume they use today. Also because Internet applications are becoming more data-intensive, demand is increasing – films are being made in particularly high-resolution versions (HD or Ultra-HD instead of SD), online computer games also need more bandwidth, and people generally use the Internet more than before.
Mobile internet usage is also increasing rapidly
The data volume has also skyrocketed in mobile broadband – i.e. via smartphones or tablets with SIM cards. According to the Federal Network Agency, it was 2.76 billion gigabytes in 2019 , but usage rose to 3.97 billion gigabytes in 2020. At 38 percent, the growth rate was significantly higher than in previous years. This development was also due to Corona. People have been traveling less, and commuting to work has been eliminated thanks to the home office – so the time outside of the home Wi-Fi has been shortened. However, many consumers also use mobile data in their own homes, also because the data packets in mobile phone contracts are getting bigger and bigger.
