Several years ago, we had only a theory: that low-power Bluetooth signals could be detected from space. But it was on October 30th, 2021 that we first put that theory to the test. How did we test our network's potential without launching a single satellite? By completely reversing the idea. So we launched a series of weather balloons, each carrying the off-the-shelf BLE chips loaded with early Hubble firmware, into the atmosphere. The question was whether we could receive accurate data from our prototype antenna back on Earth. If we could detect that signal sent from space, then it stood to reason the inverse would work, too. Our future satellites would detect Bluetooth sent from the surface. As our field team waited with bated breath at a small Mexican restaurant in Death Valley, CTO Ben Wild began detecting data from the BLE chips... and was relieved to see minimal error loss even across such a vast distance. The prototype had worked. The implications of these initial tests continue to become more profound every day. Browse our job openings at https://lnkd.in/gSekqvw3 to help us deliver on them.
