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Global satellite Internet - is there any news from the fields?



Broadband satellite Internet available to any inhabitant of the Earth anywhere in the world is a dream that is becoming a reality. Previously, satellite Internet was expensive and slow, but soon everything will change.

They are engaged in the implementation of an ambitious project in a good sense, or rather projects - SpaceX, OneWeb. In addition, at different times they announced the creation of their own network of Internet satellites by Facebook, Google and the state corporation Roscosmos. For the majority, things did not go beyond simple fantasies or the initial stages of satellite development.

What has already been done?


SpaceX Ilona Mask




A lot of things. So, SpaceX Corporation planned to launch 4425 satellites into the Earth’s orbit, then it was decided to increase their number to 12,000. It may well be, and that’s not all, but the swarm will increase to several tens of thousands.

The cost of the project is about $ 10 billion. In May last year, the company Ilona Mask launched 60 Internet satellites into orbit using a Falcon launch vehicle. Several systems were then dropped from orbit to test various aspects of the project.

The rest remained to work. In November 2019, another 60 satellites were launched. And then, in January of this year, the company launched another 60 vehicles, they were delivered into orbit at an altitude of 290 km above the Earth. At the moment, 300 satellites have been launched out of the estimated 12,000. 290 of them work as they should.


In early March, there was news that SpaceX was building satellites faster than it was possible to launch them. Now, if we divide the number of launched vehicles by the number of months that have passed since the first vehicles were put into orbit, it turns out that on average the company sends 1.3 satellites per month.

The problem with the launches is that some flights of the launch vehicle have to be postponed due to weather conditions, technical errors and other problems. Therefore, now dozens of satellites are ready, they are on Earth and are waiting in the wings. This is not a fantasy, but the official statement of the company. How this will work can be found here .


It may well be that SpaceX is the first space company to produce more orbiters than it can launch. The SpaceX factory works great.

By the way, before and now, a number of astronomers from Russia and abroad accused SpaceX of the fact that many thousands of satellites in orbit around the planet will complicate observations of space or will make such observations impossible at all. But SpaceX said that after all the satellites took their places, they would become less noticeable. In the near future, astronomers are unlikely to be able to suspend the implementation of the project. The Internet will work after the number of devices in orbit exceeds 800.

Oneweb




SpaceX's rival’s success is more modest, but you shouldn’t minimize the importance of the OneWeb project. The company intends to launch about 600 satellites into orbit, which will provide access to broadband Internet in any, even the most remote corner of the planet.

Wireless communication will be available not only to those of us who are on the surface of the planet, but also to those who fly in an airplane.

According to the head of the British company, after a year and a half, all satellites should be delivered into orbit. They are launched using the launch operator Arianespace, which, in turn, concluded an agreement with Roscosmos.

The first six OneWeb satellites were launched into orbit last February from the Kourou Cosmodrome. The remaining 34 - in February this year with Baikonur.


Adrian Stekel: OneWeb / AFP CEO

Now OneWeb plans to launch its devices about once a month - of course, not one at a time, but in a group. For several years, this company has been trying to negotiate a partnership with Russia in addition to launching Roskosmos satellites. But, unfortunately, there are more problems than successes - both in terms of providing frequencies, and in terms of regulating law enforcement communications, which is "everywhere." Intelligence agencies are not too happy with this option.

The company's investors were SoftBank, Virgin, Qualcomm, Airbus, the Mexican Grupo Salinas, the government of Rwanda, as well as some others, so you can not worry about the future of the OneWeb satellite network even in the light of new developments in the economic field.

What about the cost of communication?


So far, calculations are known only in terms of cost, without margins for consumers. Not so long ago, one of the users of the Viasat forum compared the prices for the connection of this company (it is not a competitor of Starlink from SpaceX and OneWeb, as well as the other two, which were discussed above).

He calculated the price of one gigabit per second for different networks (the unit is $ / GBps, as indicated on the forum).

Here's what happened:

  • $ 2,300,000 Viasat 2
  • $ 700,000 Viasat 3
  • $ 300,000 OneWeb phase 1
  • $ 25,000 Starlink
  • $ 10,000 Starlink w / Starship

In addition, he also calculated the cost of manufacturing and launching satellites of the indicated companies into Earth orbit:

  • Viasat 2 - $ 600 million
  • Viasat 3 - $ 700 million
  • OneWeb - $ 500K
  • Starlink - $ 500K

In general, the public global Internet should appear in a year and a half. Well, after 3-5 years, both projects, and StarLink and OneWeb, will reach their design capacity and, possibly, will add more satellites to their networks. Happiness is not far off,% usrname%.

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