Arduino : send data via satellite (or other solutions ? without GSM)

Question

I'm a researcher and I'm looking to build a very tiny embedded system. I must to send data from the desert and above the ocean, to do that I think that my single option is to use satellite transmission (and not GSM).

Thus, I found Iridium Satellite (RockBLOCK) but my main issue is that their Arduino module is too big for my project (4cm of length and too heavy).

Do you know if there is other module to send data via satellite with Arduino ? If not, do you know other microcontroller which can do that ? (Using Arduino is not mandatory for me)

Thank you a lot, Sincerely.

• timemage: This would probably be better asked on the electronics stack exchange. If you post there, you might as well list all of your requirements up front rather than people discovering them as their comments and answers are rejected.
• jsotola: i agree with @timemage ... any useful answers would reach a wider audience in future research ... the other place might be iot.stackexchange.com/questions .... the bottom line is, that this question is unrelated to the Arduino, so it is off topic here

Answer 1

My two cents: A possibility might be LoRaWAN on the 2.4GHz spectrum, for which there are also satellites in orbit.

The LoRaWAN ("Long Range Wide-Area-Network") protocol is based on a chirp-spread-spectrum (CSS) modulation and has a very high range.

I've used LoRaWAN before but not on 2.4GHz or with a satelitte, so I can't comment on the practical feasibility. However, there are some materials from The Things Conference (by The Things Network, a leading developer of LoRa network servers).

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwocSYupdIQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlNyBDxpKUw
• https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20190618/channels/news/lora-shoots-for-75pc-of-iot-market
• https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20200130/channels/news/lorawan-enters-2-4gh-plus-satellite-boost-network-sharing-embedded-security
• https://www.semtech.com/company/press/semtech-and-swarm-deliver-satellite-communications-with-lora

Also maybe other modules that can talk to the Iridium satellites suite you better. Sparkfun has a few

• https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13745
• https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16394

• Bernard: Thank you a lot for your answer ! I will check that