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The goal of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) of the Department of Defense is to strengthen our national security by accelerating the adoption of commercial technology throughout the military and strengthening our allied and national security innovation bases. Space is one of its areas of focus and two of the space "lines of effort" are multi-orbit operations and logistics and hardware-to-software transformation modernization. more
FCC has cast serious doubts about the capability of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators, such as SpaceX's Starlink, to provide low-latency broadband and thus their eligibility to bid. more
Sanjay Bhargava, Starlink Country Director for India at SpaceX (source)SpaceX Starlink is moving quickly in India. Last April, they said they would be offering service in 2022 and began accepting pre-orders. In July, SpaceX committed to manufacturing antenna systems and terminals in India and, at the end of September, Sanjay Bhargava, who had been with Elon Musk at Paypal, was selected to head Starlink in India. In the last week or two, they set up a wholly-owned subsidiary that will apply for licenses, seek Indian distribution partners, and attempt to sell 200,000 units - 80% in rural districts - in 2022. more
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. more
On November 15th, Russia used an anti-satellite missile to destroy COSMOS 1408, a defunct spy satellite. The explosion quickly created over 1,500 pieces of trackable debris and will likely generate hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces. As a precautionary measure, the astronauts on the International Space Station, two of whom are Russians, took shelter in escape shuttles during two orbits. The anti-satellite test was widely criticized, but the Russian defense ministry released a statement saying... more
The Geely Holding Group (GHG) is a private Chinese conglomerate that is highly diversified but best known as an auto manufacturer that envisions itself as a "global mobile technology group." GHG announced this week that it has begun construction of an intelligent satellite production and testing facility that will include modular satellite manufacturing, satellite testing, satellite R&D, and cloud computing centers.
Update Mar 2, 2024:
Geely launched eleven satellites in the same 50-degree inclination plane as the first nine, but there was a considerable delay between the two launches. The first nine were launched in June 2022 and the second 11 were launched in February 2024. The delay may have been caused by a satellite re-design -- The mass of these satellites is 130 kg whereas the first nine satellites had masses of 100 kg.
The launch cadence will have to speed up if they are to reach their goal of beginning service with 72 t satellites next year. more
The new Biden Administration in the USA laid out a $100 billion proposal for broadband investment as part of its $2 trillion+ infrastructure plan. Under the proposal, the plan is to provide national broadband coverage. The Administration will use better competition measures, such as price transparency, the use of public utility infrastructure, and subsidies for low-income households to achieve its goals. more
I recently used Starlink on a cruise along the coast of Northwest Africa, and I'll summarize my experience below, but first let me explain why I put some in the title of this post. I posted the following request on the Reddit Cruise group: "What has been your experience of Starlink Internet service on Seabourn or other cruise lines? How was latency? Do video chats work smoothly? Games? etc." more
Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 orders the FCC to "encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans." On October 25, The FCC issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) into how well we are doing and invited comments. The NOI points out that COVID and the concomitant increase in the use of interactive applications has "made it clear that broadband is no longer a luxury... more
We are getting closer to using alternative broadband solutions offered by international companies. Local telecommunication entities will, in this respect, be relegated to resellers. The reality of accessing low Earth-orbiting satellite (LEO) services is now clearly on the horizon. Most of the telcos and governments are not prepared for the potential shock this might cause to the structure of local telecommunications markets. more
While Starlink dominates the low-Earth orbit internet race, rivals like OneWeb, Telesat, Amazon's Project Kuiper, and Europe's IRIS² are slowly building capacity, buoyed by geopolitical necessity, state support, and commercial partnerships. more
At 4:04 am on February 26 Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, requested Starlink service from Elon Musk, and at 2:45 pm on the 26th, Elon Musk tweeted "Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route." On February 28 at 12:29 pm, Fedorov posted a photo of a truckload of terminals. (Kyiv is 10 hours ahead of California) and an engineer, Oleg Kutkov, posted the first tweet from Ukraine. more
There is a lot of speculation that Starlink is positioned to get a lot more federal subsidy from the BEAD grant program. There are a few things that have to happen for that to come to pass, but that is not the only news about Starlink these days. Starlink announced in September that it reached four million customers worldwide. What is most impressive about that announcement is the rate of growth, with the company just hitting the three million customer mark in May of 2024. more
On November 15, the FCC approved a revision to the plan for Starlink, SpaceX's forthcoming broadband satellite service. The new plan reduces the number of satellites from 4,525 to 4,409 and lowers the altitude of the phase-1 satellites from 1,100 to 550 km. Mark Handley, a professor at University College London, has created videos based on simulations he ran of both the original and revised phase 1 plans. more
In a previous post, I suggested that Cuba might be able to leap over 4G to 5G wireless infrastructure using satellite and terrestrial networks for backhaul. While that would require political and policy change, it would be a good fit with Cuban culture and skills. Before talking about Cuba, let me say a bit about wireless generations. Each mobile technology generation used new technology and enabled new applications. more
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