The weather is getting cold and the days are short in the Northern Hemisphere. The end of the year is fast approaching and preparations for the holiday seasons are well underway. It’s that cosy time of the year when people get together to spend quality time with friends and family. However, this year’s gatherings might as well happen for other reasons because something has been brewing in the Qatari deserts. Gifted players from all over the world travelled to the Arabian Peninsula to play for their nation’s colours at the FIFA World Cup 2022, a controversial edition but from a technological perspective also an innovative one. Technology has been a game changer in football for many years now and space has been a key player in this development.
Telstar: from satellite to match ball
We go back as far as 1962, to the early days of spaceflight. The Telstar 1 satellite captures the imagination of the world as it just facilitated television transmissions along with clips of sporting events. It paves the way for live worldwide broadcasting from space. Hence its name, the “Television star”. For many football fans, “Telstar” will sound familiar because it was also the name of the official match ball during the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. The ball was designed to aid visibility on black and white television broadcasts. At the same time it resembled the Telstar satellite which had a similar pattern due to its spherical shape and solar panels. The iconic design was celebrated once more with the Telstar 18, the official match ball during the World Cup in 2018.
Today there are hundreds of communications satellites in orbit. They provide global connectivity and larger amounts of bandwidth. During major sporting events such as a World Cup, satellites are always a reliable option to secure connectivity even from the most remote sport venues, team hotels, or training facilities. Read more about it in this Eurisy article.
Space suits through the roof
The World Cup 2022 is hosted in eight stadiums, all within 21 miles of central Doha. After the tournament, the stadiums will be either dismantled completely or reduced in capacity and repurposed, except for the Khalifa International Stadium. Another reason why the stadium stands out is because its roofing material uses fiberglass, the same material NASA developed over 50 years ago for spacesuits in its Apollo programme. Because of its membrane structure, it is ideal for stadium white fabric roof tops with eye-catching architectural forms. Furthermore, the fiberglass material is leightweight and at the same time stronger than steel, it keeps out the heat while letting in natural light, and as a nonflammable fabric it is also much safer.
Properly pressured and correctly charged
During the World Cup in Qatar, the technology game has reached another level. With the objective to make offside calls more accurate, cameras are mounted underneath the roof of each stadium to track the exact position of the ball and each individual player, 50 times per second. The Al Rihla official match ball provides a further vital element for the detection of tight offside calls and other incidents. Positioned in the centre of the ball is a sensor, allowing a very precise detection of every motion and impact. This is why the balls are being charged on the sidelines before the games. The ball data is instantly transmitted to a local positioning system (LPS) installed around the field. Unlike the sensor on the back of the players, the sensor inside the ball does not rely on satellite positioning. Instead, it works with ultra-wideband (UWB) frequencies. Nevertheless, KINEXON, the technology provider, is an alumni of the European Space Agency’s incubation centre in Germany.
An offside goal of Lautaro Martinez, Japan’s second goal against Spain, Ronaldo’s air ball. Three millimetre precise calls where the technology made a huge difference. Without it, the world would probably not have witnessed Saudi Arabia’s shocking win against Argentina, Germany might not have been eliminated during the group stage, and Ronaldo would have scored his record breaking goal. However, football is a game where even the smallest margins count. The only question is, how far should we bring modern technology into the game?
Did you know?
Ahead of Canada’s opening match against Belgium, astronaut Chris Hadfield visited the Canadian football team’s dressing room for an inspirational peptalk.
The Canadian astronaut is a source of inspiration for many and is well known for his cover on the ISS of David Bowie’s Space Oddity:
Data has become a big gamechanger on the pitch. Thanks to satellite positioning, teams can collect in-depth data such as velocity and acceleration, covered distance, and workload. The compression vests worn by football players underneath their shirt are designed to keep the tracking device firmly in place between their shoulder blades. In 2017 the FIFA introduced a certification of wearables to be used in competitive play.
Johan Sports is one of the companies that develops tracking devices to monitor players. The Dutch company started out as an incubatee at the Space Business Innovation Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
With spectators in space, the World Cup is more than a global event.
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger disappeared in a fiery explosion, yet somehow this ball made it back to the ground in one piece. To honour its fallen heroes, the relic was flown back to space in 2016 where it spent 173 days alongside the ISS crew.
In the run up to UEFA Euro 2020 Kylian Mbappé interviewed astronaut Thomas Pesquet. You can read my earlier blog post about it here.
