Space is a Network.
Constellations is Your Connection.

Constellations spoke with Jono Luk, Vice President of Product Management at Webex at Cisco about the transformative role of video in space exploration and overcoming the challenges to make it happen. Luk and Webex are part of a three-company effort, the Callisto project, to see that video communication in deep space becomes a reality to support humans in space – no small feat when separated by a quarter million miles.

Even in the best economy, entrepreneurship is a risky business, especially if you’re dealing with space. Over the past five years, the U.S. Department of Defense has started offering more opportunities for dual-use startups to develop and find a market for solutions with national security applications in space. The DoD spending is also expected to increase as much as 43% in FY 2023.

The world is more connected than ever with 5.3 billion mobile users around the globe and some 14 billion IoT devices but there are still billions of people who lack the most basic coverage. Lynk Global, headquartered in Virginia, began exploring ways to close the connectivity gap several years ago, investigating the possibility of establishing a two-way connection between a satellite and an unmodified cell phone on the ground.

Following a memorandum of understanding between Eutelsat and OneWeb announced July 26, and pending final government and shareholder approvals, Eutelsat will take over OneWeb sometime in early 2023, marrying OneWeb’s low-orbit constellation of broadband satellites with Eutelsat’s GEO-orbit fleet, which includes several broadband satellites.

Inter-satellite communication is advancing as the industry moves toward larger constellations and a space layer that is increasingly interconnected.

Constellations spoke with Jordan Noone, Co-Founder and General Partner of Embedded Ventures, a VC-firm that invests in space technology. His background includes co-founding Relativity Space, a unicorn of space start-ups, where he saw upfront and personal how venture funding works and doesn’t. His firm’s thesis is dual use space technology beyond launch; technology that has applications in both the commercial and the government sectors, because as he sees it, it’s almost impossible to not work with both given the government’s significant presence in space.

The increased use of satellite networks for commercial and non-commercial applications may have the salutary effect of forcing the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to put teeth into its regulations. The ITU’s Radio Regulations Board has already shown signs that it can and will push back on some of the most egregious dodges its member nations use to flout the rules.

Constellations spoke with Shawn Williams, Vice President of Government Affairs and Strategy at Pacific Dataport (PDI) about its business model for delivering broadband to remote, underserved markets. Specifically, PDI is building its Aurora Network Project to serve rural Alaskans with affordable and reliable broadband.

Satellites have become more affordable than ever before, largely due to improvements in capacity, high data throughput and more launch options, according to the 2022 SIA State of the Satellite Industry report. This dynamic took hold in a year that saw the most satellites ever put into orbit along with a dramatic increase in available bandwidth and a continued shift to larger constellations of small satellites.