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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.
Iridium formed a corporation that included directors from all of the countries that they maintained major downlink gateways in
These routed traffic off of the satellite network after a hop or two and then delivered the call over terrestrial networks
This corporate structure proved frail and was abandoned during bankruptcy restructuring
The bankruptcy started in 1999 and received a judgement from the 2nd circuit court under appeal in 2007 that left ownership with Motorola and recovered a couple of hundred million dollars to the lenders (from the $1.55 billion that was invested)
The technology that Iridium used provided a very narrow upstream/downstream data capability to handsets, something like a 2400 baud modem.
Motorola has developed an upgrade to start launching in 2015 that provides greater data transmission and more flexibility for locations of data downlink gateway locations
The spacing of the Iridium satellites requires a very wide horizon to avoid dropped calls. The precludes use in inhabited areas where there are tall buildings as well as areas that have a varied geography with deep canyons and valleys
On the good to great side, Motorola developed a first of its kind production line for satellite manufacture, used a wide variety of launch partners (Russia, China, EU, Orbital Sciences and what is now called United Launch Alliance)
If Branson is going to be competitive he will need to beat the planned data link bandwidth of Iridium NEXT (1.8MB and 8MB data links), have a much denser constellation (to prevent the need for wide horizons in order to use the system) and strong control over the terrestrial gateways and networks
It would sure be cool, but the primary problem with Iridium was that there were not enough users who absolutely, positively had to maintain voice communications no matter where they were located. You may also wonder who Branson will contract to build and launch this system, since his competitors probably are the most capable of doing the work and probably have all of the launch windows locked up into the foreseeable future
Wherever You Go, There You Are
I don't know, I'll ask Kenneth.