Satellite internet constellation

While more-limited satellite internet services have been available through geosynchronous commsats orbiting in geostationary orbit for years, these have been of quite limited bandwidth (not broadband), high-latency, and provided at such a relatively high price that demand for the services offered has been quite low. In the 1990s, several LEO satellite internet constellations were proposed and developed, including Celestri (63 satellites) and Teledesic (initially 840, later 288 satellites). These projects were abandoned after the bankruptcy of the Iridium and Globalstar satellite phone constellations in the early 2000s. In the 2010s, interest in satellite internet constellations reemerged due to the dropping cost of launching to space and the increased demand for broadband internet access. Internet satellite constellations are planned by private companies like OneWeb (OneWeb constellation), SpaceX (Starlink), Amazon (Leo), and Russia's Roscosmos (Sfera) and China (Hongwan, 2018, By late 2018, more than 18,000 new satellites had been proposed to be launched and placed in LEO orbits between 2019 and 2025. A year after the start of fielding the first satellite internet constellation—Starlink which began launching in late 2019 and began beta test of the network in late 2020; OneWeb began satellite deployment in 1H2020—the competitive disruption to established satellite company business models began to be better understood. In early 2021, the three largest European satellite operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat—which had until that time eschewed developing and fielding a broadband satellite internet constellation with private funds—informed the European Commission that they would be willing to invest in the development of such a project if the European Union were to invest government funds in the effort as well. All three companies had formerly focused on the provision of communication services from GEO and MEO orbits, while the newer satellite internet providers have been fielding their constellations exclusively in LEO. In 2018, the Russian government established the Sfera (Sphere) constellation program, to consist of 162 satellites, providing broadband internet connectivity, message relay, video broadcast, and remote sensing services. In October 2022, a demonstrator satellite called Skif-D technology was launched. == Design ==

Proposed systems vary greatly in the number of satellites, the types of orbits and the telecommunication architecture (in particular the presence or absence of inter-satellite links). System designs have been analyzed using statistical methods and simulations to estimate the total throughput. Particularly challenging is the dynamic nature of the network, as LEO satellites typically pass over a given location in less than 10 minutes. == Potential ==

For continental distances (greater than about 3,000 km), LEO satellite internet networks are expected to be able to provide lower latency than optical fiber links. This is expected to hold even without inter-satellite links, using only ground station relays. The new networks are said to be able to "potentially compete with today's ISPs in many settings". used in the Legacy Survey of Space and Time project at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. They found that 30 to 40% of exposures could be compromised during the first and last hours of the night. A study found that twilight observations are particularly affected by SC and that the fraction of streaked images taken during twilight has increased from less than 0.5% in late 2019 to 18% in August 2021 due to SpaceX Starlink Satellites. Astronomers have also voiced concern over the impact satellite internet constellations will have on radio astronomy. Additional research is needed to determine impact of (inter alia) light pollution on various locations, communities, indigenous peoples, and other forms of observation. Mitigation in astronomy A report from the SATCON1 workshop in 2020 concluded that the effects of large satellite constellations can severely affect some astronomical research efforts and lists six ways to mitigate harm to astronomy. In 2022, the IAU announced the Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference to coordinate or aggregate measures to mitigate such detrimental effects. The AAS is maintaining a living document that tracks recent progress in the field. Space governance . As of 2022, global space activity is not sufficiently shaped by any international entity, and therefore "there is no common set of rules that govern global space activity and no mechanisms to ensure the proper disposal of hardware at the completion of space missions. Nor is there any coordinated effort to clean up the decades of space debris already accumulated in orbit." Federation of Cross-Orbit Satellite Networks There exist many satellite operators at LEO, MEO, and GEO. Similar to the Internet, which is a network of networks, satellite networks of different operators can also form federated networks of satellite networks. == Constellations ==

Operational Megaconstellations • Amazon Leo — Amazon's constellation will consist of 3,236 satellites operating in three orbital shells. Service began in 2025. • G60/Qianfan — a Chinese megaconstellation project developed by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) to deploy 14,000 satellites by 2030. The first stage consists of 1,296 satellites to provide global coverage; 648 of these are to be launched by the end of 2025 to provide regional network coverage. The first launch was on August 6, 2024., second batch of satellites were launched on 15 October 2024. • Guowang/SatNet — a Chinese megaconstellation project created by SatNet, a firm backed by the CAST. it plans to be constituted of over 13,000 satellites by the project's end. • Starlink — a subsidiary of SpaceX, its satellite constellation provides high-speed Internet and some phone services. Regular service began in 2021. Smaller constellations • BlueBird — a phone service focused constellation by AST SpaceMobile, in partnership with AT&T and Verizon • China State Owned Constellation (Chinasat) — an operational satellite internet constellation owned by the government of China • Globalstar — an operational constellation of 24 low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites for satellite phone and low-speed data communications, covering most of the world's landmass. The launch of the second-generation constellation was completed on February 6, 2013 • Iridium — an operational constellation of 66 cross-linked satellites in a polar orbit, used to provide satellite phone and low-speed data services over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium NEXT, a second-generation constellation of the communications satellites, was completed on January 11, 2019 • Lynk Global — a satellite-to-mobile-phone satellite constellation with the objective of coverage to traditional low-cost mobile devices • O3b mPOWER — provides coverage to most of the globe under a service launched in 2024. Satellites built by Boeing • OneWeb constellation — in 2023 merged with Eutelsat, 648-satellite network was completed in late 2024 • Orbcomm — an operational constellation used to provide global asset monitoring and messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO communications satellites orbiting at 775 km • Viasat, Inc. — a current broadband satellite provider providing fixed, ground mobile, and airborne antennas Planned • Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite (IRIS²) — planned multi-orbit satellite internet constellation to be deployed by the European Union by 2027. • Korean Positioning System (KPS) — It will consist of a total of eight satellites, the first of which is scheduled to be launched in 2027. • Lightspeed — Broadband constellation by Telesat, to be deployed starting in 2026. • Rassvet — developed by Russian aerospace company Bureau 1440 within X Holding, developing a low-orbit satellite system for high-speed broadband data transmission. • Sfera — a satellite constellation project of the Russian Federation, with plans for up to 640 satellites. Test launch on October 23, 2022. • TeraWave — a Blue Origin project with 5280 satellites in LEO and 128 satellites in MEO with the first deployments planned for 2027. • UASAT - first launch scheduled for October 2026, with aims of launching 120 satellites by 2027. Defunct • Teledesic — a former (1990s) venture to accomplish broadband satellite internet services == See also ==