Virgin Galactic To Launch 2,400 Comm. Satellites To Offer Ubiquitous Broadband

coondoggie writes Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson this week said he wants to launch as many as 2,400 small satellites in an effort to set up a constellation capable of bringing broadband communications through a company called OneWeb to millions of people who do not have it. He said he plans to initially launch a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation of 648 satellites to get the project rolling.

Comments

Impractical at Virgin's launch prices

[Guspaz]

They just announced today that the rocket that will be putting these things up will cost $10 million and have a LEO payload capacity of 225 kg... making it one of the most expensive launchers in the world, nearly ten times the cost per kilo of SpaceX. How they expect this to work with such insanely high costs is beyond me.

on what frequency?

[BradMajors]

Is there an available frequency(ies) for him to use?

Re:Kessler Syndrome Alert

[Kjella]

Low earth orbit (LEO) is not a big threat, even a major clusterfuck would be resolved in a couple decades as the debris burns up in the athmosphere. The only way ISS stays in the sky is because of constant boosts by visiting space ships. satellites similarly have built in thrusters for their design life. In GEO on the other hand the orbit is stable for centuries and fucking up bad there would plague us for a very long time.