Inmarsat to launch new low orbit communications satellite constellation
Capitalism in space: Inmarsat announced yesterday that it plans to launch a 150 satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to supplement and improve its already orbiting communications satellites in high geosynchronous orbit.
The company is investing $100 million over the next five years to lay the groundwork for deploying 150-175 LEO spacecraft.
They aim to join satellites Inmarsat has in geostationary and highly elliptical orbits from 2026. Inmarsat, which currently operates 14 satellites, is also on track to add five new GEO and two HEO spacecraft to its network over the next five years.
Its incoming multi-orbit constellation, called Orchestra, seeks to improve latency, network speeds and resiliency for communications services across its core maritime, aviation, government and enterprise markets.
This new constellation is also an effort by Inmarsat to keep its communications product competitive against the newer constellations being launched by SpaceX (Starlink) and OneWeb.
For the space launch industry, this just means more launches, more demand for rockets, and more money to be made.
Note that Inmarsat’s approach here is the correct way to respond to competition. Rather than try to squelch your competitors using government regulation, as Viasat is attempting, Inmarsat is instead up its game, improving its product, and thus matching the challenge its competitors are offering it.
One last question: Will this new constellation, set to be operational by ’26, get there before Amazon’s long promised Kuiper constellation? Right now I’m willing to bet that it will, considering how slow Amazon has been in developing that system.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: Inmarsat announced yesterday that it plans to launch a 150 satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to supplement and improve its already orbiting communications satellites in high geosynchronous orbit.
The company is investing $100 million over the next five years to lay the groundwork for deploying 150-175 LEO spacecraft.
They aim to join satellites Inmarsat has in geostationary and highly elliptical orbits from 2026. Inmarsat, which currently operates 14 satellites, is also on track to add five new GEO and two HEO spacecraft to its network over the next five years.
Its incoming multi-orbit constellation, called Orchestra, seeks to improve latency, network speeds and resiliency for communications services across its core maritime, aviation, government and enterprise markets.
This new constellation is also an effort by Inmarsat to keep its communications product competitive against the newer constellations being launched by SpaceX (Starlink) and OneWeb.
For the space launch industry, this just means more launches, more demand for rockets, and more money to be made.
Note that Inmarsat’s approach here is the correct way to respond to competition. Rather than try to squelch your competitors using government regulation, as Viasat is attempting, Inmarsat is instead up its game, improving its product, and thus matching the challenge its competitors are offering it.
One last question: Will this new constellation, set to be operational by ’26, get there before Amazon’s long promised Kuiper constellation? Right now I’m willing to bet that it will, considering how slow Amazon has been in developing that system.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Small edit in first sentence: “to supplement and improve its already-orbiting communications satellites”
Andi: Fixed. Thank you.
I always wondered what would happen to the satellite phone market once Starlink or Oneweb is in full use. In some Pacific islands, the only way to communicate with them, besides ham radio, is with a satellite phone. It has been four years, but some of the rates for an Iridium sat phone was about a buck a minute and the data rates were higher. Also on those islands, the internet is always down.
So, you get Starkink or one of the others, get a “Magic Jack” and the cost drops. Better connections to remote areas of the Earth.