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Interoperability with GEO satellites must happen—it’s common sense ... Customers don’t care whether it’s a LEO satellite or a GEO satellite—all they want is connectivity. —Neil Masterson, OneWeb CEO, at the Satellite 2021 Conference
Three satellite companies, SES, Telesat, and Hughes, are working toward integrated, multi-orbit broadband Internet service and Eutelsat may join them.
It is too soon for these companies to be offering integrated multi-orbit services, but they have begun testing and demonstrating switching and antenna technology.
These are just some examples of early tests of multi-orbit connectivity and new technology is being developed. For example, check out this short video of a test of a SatixFy multi-beam antenna that was able to lock on to and track LEO and GEO satellites while rotating at 20 degrees per second.
OneWeb, Telesat, and SES are working on integrated, multi-orbit services. I don’t know what SpaceX and the forthcoming LEO constellation operators—China SatNet and Project Kuiper—are planning. China space expert Blaine Curcio told me a China SatNet partnership “would require more GEO-HTS capacity than China currently has, and indeed, maybe even more than they have plans for.” A partnership with Hughes would be impossible in today’s political climate, but perhaps they could do something with Telesat, SES, or another non-US GEO provider as could Kuiper.
Since LEO Internet service will diminish GEO Internet revenue and free up capacity, GEO operators would probably be open to partnering with SpaceX. If SpaceX were to pursue a multi-orbit partner, Hughes, with its OneWeb experience and HughesON technology, would have the inside track as a GEO-interoperability partner.
Update Jan 23, 2022:
SES CEO Steve Collar: “We are not religious about orbits. There are things that we could do from LEO that are pretty attractive and we have some exciting projects that we are working on that I hope we will be in a position to announce soon that will likely leverage LEO. We have long said we are a multi-orbit operator. What I can say with a pretty high degree of confidence is that our future does not lie in a large LEO broadband constellation.”
That would make them the first 3-orbit operator.
Update Dec 2, 2022:
Eutelsat has ordered a geostationary broadband satellite that will support integrated multi-orbit service with its OneWeb low-Earth orbit satellites. The satellite will service the Americas, where immediate multi-orbit demand is expected to be greatest, beginning in 2026.
Before being acquired by Eutelsat, OneWeb demonstrated connectivity from an airplane to their LEO satellite and an Intelsat geostationary satellite. My guess is that they will operate with multiple geostationary operators.
We will eventually have multi-orbit standards for airlines and other users—perhaps Aalyria SpaceTime will fill that role.
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