Viasat, Ligado and Skylo Technologies are entering the direct-to-handset service provider marketplace, with Viasat announcing Thursday a nonbinding memorandum of understanding among the three to offer service via Ligado's SkyTerra satellite network. Viasat said it and Ligado have offered a variety of mobile satellite services over SkyTerra for years, and the MOU agreement adds Skylo technology, sales and services. It said the three plan to launch commercial services this year, including smartphone messaging, wearable connectivity and IoT services across market segments including consumer smartphone, automotive and defense applications. Skylo announced this week it and Intelsat were partnering with Deutsche Telekom on a hybrid terrestrial/satellite IoT service offering to be commercially available starting in Q2.
Whether optical ground station (OGS) technology gains lasting traction in commercial markets depends on OGS value chain players tackling the many challenges of space-to-ground links, Northern Sky Research analyst Prachi Kawade blogged Thursday. NSR predicted more than 170 direct-to-earth laser communication terminals will be launched in the next decade, all requiring OGS services. It said RF will continue to dominate until OGS link availability and reliability -- which can be significantly affected by the atmosphere -- is well established. NSR said ground service providers will move toward optical ground networks applications beyond Earth, such as lunar communications.
California-based Launcher is seeking FCC International Bureau approval for launch and operation of its Orbiter SN3 orbital transfer vehicle. It said in an application Wednesday that SN3 would deploy customer payloads in non-geostationary orbit, with its launch date June 10 at the earliest.
Mangata expects to have its trial network operational late this year for its planned non-geostationary orbit broadband constellation, company officials told FCC representatives per an International Bureau ex parte filing Wednesday. It said its launch, payload development and gateway development supplier contracts are signed and more than 1.5 Tbps of capacity is booked, with customers including U.S. network operators and defense contractors. Mangata said its highly elliptical orbit launches are to start in Q1 2026, with initial medium earth orbit launches to follow. It also said it has begun initial coordination with other satellite operators, and urged approval of its pending application seeking U.S. market access for the 823-satellite constellation (see 2005270010).
SpaceX and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. were the busiest launchers in Q4 2022, with 18 launches each, BryceTech said Tuesday. SpaceX launched 342 vehicles in those missions, and CASC did 27, it said. Next busiest was Russia's Roscosmos, with nine launches, it said. U.S. launch providers had 25 missions in Q4, compared with China's 22, BryceTech said.
SpaceX's latest request to use the 1.6/2.4 GHz band, this time for direct-to-device service (see 2302080001), "offers nothing new," Globalstar told the FCC International Bureau in a filing Monday. It said, like SpaceX's previous application to use that spectrum, the application "is void of any technical justification, contradicts settled Commission precedent, and seeks to jeopardize critical communications services provided by Globalstar and its partners globally for more than two decades." SpaceX didn't comment Tuesday.
Gogo expects to launch a low earth orbit-enabled aeronautical broadband service in the second half of next year, it said Tuesday, announcing Q4 2022 financial results. It said it still expects to launch its 5G service in Q4 of this year. Revenue was $108.2 million for the most-recent quarter, up 17% year over year, and aircraft online via terrestrial wireless reached 6,935, an 8% increase, said Gogo.
Spain approved Globalstar providing terrestrial services over its mobile satellite spectrum, including LTE and 5G compliant services, the satellite operator said Monday. It's the first European nation and the 10th globally to authorize service, it said.
Hoping to get more life out of its earth exploration satellite service SkySat satellites, Planet Lab seeks FCC International Bureau permission to expand their orbits. In an application posted Monday, it said that could extend the satellite lifetimes by 50% and doesn't create any countervailing harms on spectrum interference or orbital debris mitigation. It asked to operate SkySats 16-21 in orbital altitudes of 345-450 km and SkySat 19 at 345-425 km, rather than the 400-420 for which they are licensed. It also asked to lower the operational range of SkySats 3-15, 20 and 21 to a perigee of 345 km.
Smartphone makers Motorola, Honor, Nothing, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi are working with Qualcomm to develop smartphones with satellite communication capabilities, leveraging its Iridium-enabled Snapdragon Satellite platform, Qualcomm said Monday. It said Snapdragon Satellite also will expand to other device categories in computing, automotive and IoT. In a note to investors, William Blair's Louie DiPalma said those smartphone makers combined produce about 30% of global smartphone units. He said Android OEM Samsung "is notably absent from the list," but Samsung is very likely to become part of the Snapdragon Satellite group. Last week Samsung announced it was working on satellite connectivity for its Exynos chip.