Original title: A Review of ERA5 Equatorial Wind Data and Impact on a Space Elevator
Blaise Gassend, Jonathan Gassend · September 2026
A space elevator needs a giant tether reaching to space, but strong winds can tilt the cable and reduce how much weight it can carry. Researchers used global weather data from ERA5 to study wind along Earth's equator. They showed how wind effects boil down to one basic measure: the average wind speed weighted across air pressure. This simple link helps engineers calculate how much wind a specific design can handle. The team found that equatorial winds vary by location. Winds push less over land and more over oceans, with the lowest 20 km of the atmosphere causing most of the force. If thin-ribbon cables face the wind, real equatorial gusts become a major obstacle. Combining wind and lightning data reveals several promising anchor locations.
You are trying to dangle a long, thin straw straight down from a helicopter hovering high above. The straw is so light that even a gentle breeze makes it lean sideways. If it leans too far, you cannot lift a bucket of water up along it without the straw snapping. Now imagine the breeze is not steady—sometimes it comes from the left, sometimes from the right, and it gets stronger higher up. In this paper, the straw is the space elevator ribbon, the bucket of water is the cargo, and the researchers check what the real winds are like along the equator to see which spots have weak and steady enough breezes to let the straw work.
A space elevator is a thin ribbon stretched from Earth to orbit, the holy grail of cheap launch. But if wind bends it too far, the ribbon breaks or can't carry cargo. This paper shows that, based on real weather data, equatorial wind is strong enough to wreck the most practical ribbon designs unless builders choose the anchor site carefully. It turns the dream from a physics problem into a geography problem.
The paper uses ERA5 data, which has limited vertical resolution and may miss fine-scale wind gusts. The analysis assumes the ribbon is aligned to face the wind; real designs might rotate or be shaped differently. Mitigation strategies are discussed but not tested. Lightning statistics are combined with wind data but not analyzed in depth. The conclusions apply only to thin-ribbon equatorial designs, not all space elevator concepts.
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A Review of ERA5 Equatorial Wind Data and Impact on a Space Elevator — Blaise Gassend, Jonathan Gassend
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.