eli5 Why can’t black boxes in Aeroplanes update data to a cloud throughout a flight or after a crash has occured? why do we need to find the physical box?

Question

eli5 Why can’t black boxes in Aeroplanes update data to a cloud throughout a flight or after a crash has occured? why do we need to find the physical box?

In: 846

Answer 1

Quite simply because, until the recent advent of SpaceX Starlink, no satellite data service existed that would affordably provide the bitrate necessary.