SEPTEMBER 25, 2017BUSINESS | POLITICS | PERSPECTIVE
I N S I D E
■ Cassini's final moments■ Quantum encryption■ Downlink in the ride-hailing era
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Empowering high-throughput evolution
A year after absorbing O3B, SES is going big
on medium Earth orbit
end end Small Spacecraft MISSIONS-to-
Sun Sensors CubeSatS ADACSStar Trackers
adcolemai.com
50 kg - 180 kg Satelitte Platform
SmallSatellites& CubeSats
E n d - t o - E n d
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ABOVE: A NASA artist’s concept of Cassini diving between Saturn and its innermost ring. See story, page 12.
ON THE COVER: AN SES DEPICTION OF ITS NEWLY ANNOUNCED O3B MPOWER CONSTELLATION.
C O N T E N T S 0 9 . 2 5 . 1 7
DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
14Empowering a high-throughput evolutionWhy the CEO of SES thinks
no one orbit is fully right—
or completely wrong.
22Europe’s shot at quantum encryptionChina might be in the lead,
but researchers say Europe
could have a network up and
running in five years.
18HTS evolution: the customer perspectiveContent delivery networks
to operators: you need to
evolve, starting yesterday.
24LeoSat’s big data dealLeoSat forges a pact to
transmit data for Pakistan’s
Supernet Ltd.
21Is flexibility satellite’s new must-have feature?When high-throughput is no
longer enough.
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3 QUICK TAKES
6 NEWS Analysts see red flags
in Northrop’s Orbital
acquisition
Air Force taking steps
to speed space
modernization
Kestrel Eye positions
Adcole Maryland
Aerospace for more
satellite work
Cassini’s final moments
26 COMMENTARY Mark R. Whittington
What the National Space
Council can do — and
what it cannot
28 COMMENTARY Ken Sembach In searching for life, go
big or stay home
30 CAPITAL CONTRIBUTIONS Dylan Taylor
Satellite downlink in the
ride-hailing era
32 FOUST FORWARD The political climate
of a NASA administrator
nomination
2 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
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SIGNIFICANT DIGITS
AIA TAPS OBAMA APPOINTEEThe Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) has selected
a former Secretary of the Army as its new leader. AIA an-
nounced Sept. 18 that Eric Fanning will become presi-
dent and CEO of the organization on Jan. 1, succeeding
David Melcher, who announced in July he would leave
the organization at the end of the year. Fanning was Sec-
retary of the Army late in the Obama administration and
previously served in other Pentagon posts, including six
months as acting Secretary of the Air Force in 2013.
AMAZING, GRACEA long-lived Earth science mission is coming to an end. NASA and its German partners are preparing
to retire the twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites in November after one
final observing run, as the satellites run out of maneuvering fuel and suffer other problems. The satel-
lites, launched in 2002 for a five-year mission, measure variations in the Earth’s gravity field that can
be used to track motions of water linked to seasonal patterns and climate processes. A replacement
mission, called GRACE-FO, is scheduled to launch early next year on a Falcon 9 along with five Irid-
ium Next satellites.
Eric Fanning
$19.9B The House passed an omnibus spend-ing bill Sept. 14 that included funding for NASA. The bill combined eight in-dividual appropriations bills, includ-ing the commerce, justice and science (CJS) bill. The omnibus bill left intact the provisions in the CJS bill giving NASA nearly $19.9 billion for 2018. The full Senate has yet to take up its version of the bill. Congress this month passed a continuing resolution that will fund the government when the 2018 fis-cal year starts Oct. 1 until Dec. 8, giv-ing Congress additional time to finalize a 2018 bill.
2The European Space Agency has signed the first contract for an Ariane 6 launch.ESA has agreed to launch four Gali-leo navigation satellites on two Ariane 62 rockets, the lighter version of the Ariane 6 with two solid-fuel strap-on boosters. The launches are scheduled for late 2020 and mid-2021, with ESA retaining an option to launch the satel-lites on an Arianespace-provided Soyuz instead.
$95MBritish fund manager Seraphim Cap-ital has established a fund devoted to investing in space-related compa-nies. The Seraphim Space Fund, with approximately$95 million availa-ble, will back companies developing Earth observation technologies and tools to analyze that data. Airbus, SES and Surrey Satellite are among the companies that have invested in the fund. Seraphim has already in-vested in Spire and Finnish company Iceye, which is developing a radar satellite constellation.
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NEW STARTSU.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis says there is
a need for new space systems to counter emerg-
ing threats. Mattis, in a Sept. 20 speech at the Air
Force Association’s Air Space Cyber conference,
called for “new starts in order to take advantage
of what industry can deliver if we are willing to
invest there.” He specifically cited concerns that
space is becoming contested and is no longer
a sanctuary. Mattis also criticized “imaginary le-
gal restrictions” that hinder cooperation between
the military and industry on discussing needs and
capabilities for future systems.
LOCKHEED’S STARTING LINEUPLockheed Martin announced a new line of satellite buses Sept. 19 that range from
cubesats to large spacecraft. The buses, despite their wide range in size, use common
components designed to reduce cost and speed production time. At the small end is
the LM 50, a nanosatellite bus developed in partnership with Terran Orbital, a cubesat
developer that Lockheed Martin took a stake in earlier this year. At the large end is the
LM 2100, an updated version of its A2100 bus used primarily for large GEO satellites.
BLACKSKY’S SILVER LININGBlackSky announced Sept. 15 a joint venture with Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio
for its Earth-imaging constellation. Thales Alenia will make a minority investment in
BlackSky’s owner, Spaceflight Industries, and create a joint venture to establish a sat-
ellite manufacturing facility in the U.S. for BlackSky’s satellites. BlackSky is planning
a 60-satellite constellation to ultimately provide hourly revisits of most of the Earth.
Telespazio will help distribute the analytics products derived from BlackSky satellite
imagery worldwide, with a focus on Europe. The first four satellites of the BlackSky
constellation will launch next year, but with no set timetable for the rest of the system.
“Just recently, we had to go and change the scheme on how we number objects in orbit because we’re frankly running out of numbers.”—TED MUELHAUPT, ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL
DIRECTOR OF THE SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
AND SIMULATION SUBDIVISION AT THE
AEROSPACE CORPORATION, IN A SEPT. 21
PRESENTATION ON CAPITOL HILL ON ORBIT-
AL DEBRIS.
SPACENEWS.COM | 5
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DIALING UP BROADBAND DOLLARS?SpaceX is seeking an exemption to an FCC ruling that disqualifies
satellite systems from accessing a broadband fund. The FCC ex-
cludes satellite systems from its Connect America Fund, estab-
lished to help provide broadband access to 23 million Americans
without it, because it concludes that satellites are not able to pro-
vide low-latency services. SpaceX disagrees, arguing that its pro-
posed constellations in low Earth orbit will have latencies of as low
as 25 to 35 milliseconds and can provide “fiber-like speeds.” In a
Sept. 18 letter to the FCC, SpaceX wrote: “Conflating [Non-geosyn-
chronous] systems and [geosynchronous] systems would be the
same as the Commission prohibiting fiber systems from bidding
because dial-up is not fast enough: just because both systems are
hard wired does not mean that they are equivalent.” SpaceX, mean-
while, disclosed in a trademark filing that it plans to call its broad-
band system “Starlink” while leaving the door open for using that
name for other satellite applications, such as remote sensing.
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News of the $9.2 billion acquisition by
Northrop Grumman of Orbital ATK
has been met with mixed reactions
on what it could mean for the Pen-
tagon’s space business.
In a conference call Sept. 8, executives from
both firms described the combination of both
companies as a “complementary fit.”
Industry analysts see the merger as a natural
consequence of constrained government spend-
ing and pressure on corporations to reduce costs.
But they also are raising potential red flags such
as the possibility that a larger, more vertically in-
tegrated company would leave the military with
fewer choices in certain sectors of the market.
One concern is what implications this merger
could have in ongoing efforts to modernize the
nation’s intercontinental ballistic missiles. Orbital
ATK is one of two key suppliers of rocket motors
that would power future ICBMs. The two prime
contractors that were selected to design the
next-generation “ground based strategic deterrent”
ICBM — Boeing and Northrop Grumman — had
been expected to compete the rocket motor work
between Orbital ATK and Aerojet Rocketdyne.
With Orbital under Northrop Grumman
ownership, that type of competition would not
be possible. “It will be interesting to see how the
NEWS CONSOLIDATION
Analysts see red flags in Northrop’s acquisition of Orbital ATK
An unarmed Minuteman 2 launches from Vandenberg in April Northrop is vying with Boeing to replace the 50-year-old ground-based missile.
Air Force responds with regards to the GBSD
program,” space and defense analyst Todd Harri-
son, of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, told SpaceNews. “If there is any area for
pushback, that may be it.”
Outside of GBSD concerns, “I think this merger
makes a lot of sense for both companies,” Har-
rison added. “In the space segment, Northrop
has been a leader in satellite payloads but not so
much when it comes to developing complete
systems. This acquisition vertically integrates
their business by bringing in Orbital’s expertise
in satellite buses, launch systems and other areas.”
Both firms work in classified satellite markets,
and so an issue is how — if at all— consolida-
tion could impact this segment, Byron Callan,
of Capital Alpha Partners, noted in an email to
clients. Orbital is a subcontractor for composite
structures on the B-21 bomber to Northrop Grum-
man. “While this program is still in development,
vertical integration will also be a focus in DoD’s
review of the transaction,” commented Callan.
Orbital ATK generally benefits from the deal,
said Callan, as it faces uncertainty in commer-
cial space launch and aggressive competition
from SpaceX.
Robert Stallard of Vertical Research Partners
views the merger as favorable to both sides.
“Northrop already has a significant presence
in payloads, it has not had launcher capability
which is one of the areas that Orbital ATK brings
for both space and missile defense,” he wrote in
an email to investors.
One caveat: “Given that Northrop already op-
erates in the space field, it is possible that there
could be some overlapping activity or increased
vertical integration that could prompt regulatory
scrutiny,” said Stallard.
This would be the first prime contractor ac-
quisition under the Trump administration, and
will be seen as a test case. Concerns over the
scale of the primes were deal breakers in previous
administrations. SN
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WSBR LunchRepresentative Ami Bera (D-CA)
October 2, 2017 11:30am - 1:30pmCity Club of Washington
Congressman Ami Bera will share his observations since taking over as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Space.
Congressman Ami Bera is a physician who was elected in 2012 to represent California’s Seventh Congressional District.He serves on the House Committee on Foreign A airs and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
In February 2017, Bera was elected Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Space by House Democrats.
Register for the Luncheon at:www.wsbr.org
8 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
NEWS MILITARY SPACE
Air Force taking steps to speed up space modernization
Space advocates on Capitol Hill have
pounded the Air Force for the slow
pace of modernization. The four-star
general in charge of Air Force Space
Command says the message has been heard
loud and clear.
“We need to move faster,” Gen. John “Jay”
Raymond said Sept. 20 at the Air Force Asso-
ciation’s Air Space Cyber conference in Na-
tional Harbor, Maryland.
“And we are taking steps to be able to do
that,” he added.
The Air Force is convinced that acquisition
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programs would move faster if the chain of
command were simplified, he said. Service
leaders have asked the Pentagon to dele-
gate milestone decision authority to the Air
Force for critical programs, for instance. “We
are pushing down to the lowest levels we
can the authority on acquisition programs,”
said Raymond.
Space Command has its own fast-track pro-
curement office known as “operationally re-
sponsive space.” But it is also reaching out to
the Air Force rapid capabilities office, an or-
ganization that has been lauded for minimiz-
ing red tape and bringing to fruition the B-21
bomber and the X-37B space plane.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, shown visiting the Alabam National Guard in May, wants to re-align space force into a seper-ate branch of the military.
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“Keeping up with the accelerated pace of change of threats is a problem in general for DoD.”
Military space warriors also are seeking
to work more closely with the intelligence
community’s National Reconnaissance Of-
fice that builds secret spy satellites. “We need
to have more partnerships with the NRO,”
said Raymond.
A test of whether the Air Force can move
faster is coming up this fall when Space Com-
mand will begin experimenting with a new
tactical network called Enterprise Space Battle
Management Command and Control.
Unlike traditional systems, this one is being
designed with open standards so it can be up-
dated as new technology comes on the mar-
ket. “The goal is to develop a system with an
open architecture to enable broad commer-
cial involvement,” Raymond said.
“The doors are open to commercial space,”
he said.
Brian Weeden, space policy expert at the
Secure World Foundation, said these are
worthwhile efforts but doubts that they will
accomplish dramatic change.
Closer ties with the NRO would be help-
ful, but that seems unrealistic, Weeden told
SpaceNews. “There are challenges in how the
military space world interacts with the intel-
ligence world.” The NRO has a different cul-
ture, different legal authorities and budgets
than the military.
Weeden estimates that about $25 billion a
year is spent on national security space and less
than $10 billion is in the unclassified budget.
The sluggish acquisition process is an is-
sue not unique to space, he said. “Keeping up
with the accelerated pace of change of threats
is a problem in general for DoD.”
Former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee
James led a number of procurement reforms
during the Obama administration, such as di-
recting more frequent use of nontraditional
contracting. Nonetheless, “We still have a long
way to go,” James said Sept. 6 at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
“I think we need to continue pushing the en-
velope,” she said. “The key thing is to get some
of the bureaucracy off to the side and stream-
line. We don’t need a massive reorganization.”
The important thing is for leaders to make
decisions and “move out,” she said. “That was
one of my key frustrations. Congress does
see we have struggled. And they are OK to be
concerned.”
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the
subcommittee on strategic forces, has been
pushing to realign space forces into a sep-
arate branch of the military. “We need to in-
tegrate our space program much better,” he
said. “We should be simplifying acquisition.”
Former Air Force procurement chief Wil-
liam LaPlante said the service would be smart
to follow the rapid capabilities office model for
the space business. “It has the best contract-
ing officers and engineering talent, the best
acquisition professionals,” he said. “They get
stuff done.”
However, there is a risk of overloading the
rapid capabilities office with too many programs
and slowing it down. He would recommend a
“space rapid capabilities office” to focus only
on space. “It’s a model that works.”
Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, head of Air Force Space Command, it taking steps to streamline acquisition.
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NEWS SMALL SATELLITES
Kestrel Eye launch positions Adcole Maryland Aerospace for more satellite work
A small satellite built for the U.S. Army awaits its deployment orders
With the recent launch of its Kes-
trel Eye electro-optical micro-
satellite as an Army testbed,
Adcole Maryland Aerospace
is in the hunt for other related government
and commercial business, company Presi-
dent Glen Cameron said.
Already, both commercial and government
potential customers have sought contracts or
shown interest in the microsatellite system or
its components, Cameron said.
“Most of the immediate, short-term inter-
est has come primarily from commercial cus-
tomers,” he said. “They like to lean forward a
little. The interest from the government is very
much ‘wait and see’ how the system performs.”
Adcole already has seen a great deal of in-
terest from companies looking to build on
MICHAEL FABEY
what’s been accomplished with Kestrel Eye,
said Ken Bocam, program manager.
“While some are taking a ‘wait-and-see’ ap-
proach,” he said, “for others, the mere fact that
the hardware has been built and delivered and
so forth — that it’s been through qualification
testing, which is not a cakewalk — they’ve al-
ready engaged us to build on this technology.”
The Army test mission could prove to be a
boon for the Crofton, Maryland-based com-
pany, the result of a May merger between Ad-
cole and Maryland Aerospace. “This essentially
puts us on the map and proves our capabili-
ties to deliver spacecraft and spacecraft com-
ponents and especially how to work at the
full-mission level,” Bocam said.
“We’ve had the opportunity to get it built
and launched and hopefully demonstrated in
space,” he said. “There is opportunity for us to
capitalize on this.”
The company has developed a small space-
craft platform it calls the Magic Bus, a Kestrel
Eye derivative, he said, for commercial markets.
“We can accommodate a lot of different
payloads that are of interest to commercial
and government customers,” he said. “The
dimensions are such, with easy scaling, the
Magic Bus can be used for lot of secondary
launches, including shared launches with other
satellites. The dimensions really maximize the
Adcole Maryland Aerospace aims to parlay its experience building Kestrel Eye into a commercial offering it calls Magic Bus.
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rideshare opportunities out there to accom-
modate sensors and payloads.”
While it tracks commercial and other gov-
ernment business opportunities, the company
is also anxiously awaiting the deployment
of its Kestrel Eye Army microsatellite, which
launched Aug. 14 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
from Cape Canaveral as part of a cargo resup-
ply mission to the International Space Station.
The satellite will be deployed by the space-sta-
tion crew after a Japanese Experiment Mod-
ule airlock opening is scheduled. The station’s
arm will place Kestrel Eye into position and re-
lease it for deployment in the fall, possibly in
October, Bocam said.
Then the satellite will be powered up and
checked out, he said, a procedure that could
run a couple of weeks. Once the Army and the
rest of the Kestrel Eye team feel assured the
satellite is functioning properly, it will start its
military assessment and demonstration, which
could be completed by the end of the year.
“At the conclusion of the military utility
assessment,” Bocam said, “if there is orbital
lifetime remaining — and at the prerogative of
the Defense Department, the Army primarily
— there may be an opportunity to utilize the
spacecraft for any residual operations.”
The Army wants to demonstrate how a
nanosatellite can capture space-based, tacti-
cal-level intelligence and help a ground com-
mander avoid tactical surprise, said Lt. Gen.
James Dickinson, commander of the U.S.
Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
The Army wants to show the military ben-
efits of downlinking satellite imagery via a da-
ta-relay network without the need for relays
routed through the continental United States.
“Based on the military assessment they
may come back to us and ask us to enhance
the vehicle, if they want to move to an oper-
ational system,” Cameron said.
“Or if this goes to the next stage,” he said,
“the Army could decide to fund a full constel-
lation, moving us to the production of doz-
ens of spacecraft – they are talking as many
as 60. That would be a significant challenge.”
One, he said, he’d like to face.
Kestrel Eye hitches a ride on a Falcon 9 bound for the Inter-national Space Station.
SPAC
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NEWS OUTER PLANETS
Cassini’s final
moments
IN THE FINAL MINUTES OF CASSINI’S 20-YEAR MISSION in the early morning
hours of Sept. 15, team members focused
their attention on a pair of green lines that
looked like EKGs. The displays showed the
signal being received by NASA’s Deep Space
Network (DSN) at X- and S-bands, each with
a spike in the middle: the signal from, and the
heartbeat of, Cassini.
At 7:55:39 a.m. Eastern, the spike on the
X-band display disappeared, indicating that
the DSN was no longer receiving a signal from
Cassini at that frequency. Seven seconds later,
the same thing happened for the S-band display.
Cassini had gone silent, for good.
“The signal from the spacecraft is gone
and, within the next 45 seconds, so will be
the spacecraft,” Cassini program manager Earl
Maize said in mission control moments later.
“I’m going to call this the end of mission.”
Cassini’s final transmission came as the
spacecraft made a deliberate plunge into Sat-
urn’s atmosphere, a maneuver planned years
in advance to safely dispose of the spacecraft
as it exhausted its supply of maneuvering fuel.
The concern was that the spacecraft, if left to
drift in orbit around the planet, could one day
collide with the moons Enceladus or Titan, two
worlds that scientists — using data from Cas-
sini itself — believe to be potentially habitable.
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“We didn’t have any choice,” Maize said
in an interview shortly before the end of the
mission, when asked why the mission ended
with a plunge into the atmosphere. “Cassini
must be disposed of properly.”
Cassini returned its last images of the Sat-
urn system in the hours prior to its plunge,
then reconfigured itself to transmit real-time
data from eight instruments as it entered the
atmosphere, providing scientific results, such
as measurements of the composition of the
atmosphere, up until its last seconds.
Maize said there was the option to send
Cassini out of orbit around Saturn entirely,
but the scientific return promised by a final
plunge into the planet was too good to refuse.
“Saturn was so compelling, so exciting, and the
mission we finally came up with was so rich
scientifically that we just couldn’t — we had
to finish up at Saturn, not some place else.”
That final plunge ended a mission that
started with a launch on a Titan 4 in October
1997. Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in
July 2004 and studied the planet, its rings and
dozens of moons for more than 13 years. It also
deployed a European-built probe, Huygens,
that landed on Titan in early 2005.
The spacecraft was remarkably free of major
issues throughout the entire mission, perform-
ing as expected up through its final seconds
in the atmosphere. Spacecraft designers “built
a perfect spacecraft, right to the last end,” said
Julie Webster, spacecraft operations manager
on the mission, at the press conference. “It did
exactly what it said it was supposed to do,” she
said. “Even better.”
This deliberate end to Cassini gave those
involved time a chance to meet one more time
to commemorate the mission. Down the road
from JPL, hundreds of scientists gathered on
the Caltech campus in the pre-dawn hours,
watching the NASA TV broadcast of the Cas-
sini’s final moments.
“Cassini’s final gift to humanity is that we
knew the day, the hour, the minute and now
the second of the plunge,” said Linda Spilker,
Cassini project scientist. “We could gather to-
gether with the scientists, the engineers, the
public and our own families — a giant, worldwide
Cassini family — and share this final moment
of the plunge and have that memory to add to
our Cassini scrapbooks.”
NASA currently has no missions on the
books to return to Saturn, but those involved
with Cassini emphasized that they expect,
sooner or later, NASA to return to Saturn and
its moons, perhaps with a mission selected
in the ongoing competition for the next New
Frontiers mission.
“The discoveries that Cassini has made over the
past 13 years in orbit have rewritten the textbooks
of Saturn, have discovered worlds that could be
habitable and have guaranteed that we will return
to that ringed world,” said JPL Director Michael
Watkins at the press conference.
“I hope you’re all as deeply proud of this
amazing accomplishment,” Maize said to
the Cassini team in mission control after it
lost contact. “Congratulations to you all. This
has been an incredible mission, an incred-
ible spacecraft, and you’re all an incredible
team.”
One of the last images taken by the Cassini spacecraft was this view of the moon Enceladus setting behind the limb of Saturn.
14 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
SES
HTS EVOLUTION
Before SES ordered seven souped-up
O3b mPower satellites this month from
Boeing, industry spectators thought the
satellite operator would soon join competitors
Inmarsat, Intelsat and ViaSat in building out a
global constellation of high-throughput sat-
ellites (HTS) in geostationary orbit.
Karim Michel Sabbagh, SES’s president and
chief executive, dismissed such rumors Sept.
11, saying that SES had no such network in its
playbook. If, and likely when, SES covers the
globe in high-throughput capacity, it will be
from a non-geostationary orbit.
O3b mPower, expected to bring 10 terabits
of capacity to 400 million square kilometers —
about 80 percent of the Earth’s surface — can
be expanded with little difficulty to the last 20
percent, SES executives have said. SES Net-
work’s medium-Earth orbit (MEO) foothold
— at 8,000 kilometers, less than a fourth the
distance to geostationary orbit — now forms
the crux of SES’s high-throughput strategy.
But that doesn’t mean SES is divesting from
GEO-HTS. While O3b mPower does eliminate
the need for replacing two ageing geostationary
satellites, Thales Alenia Space is building SES-
17, a satellite SES ordered in September 2016,
from which Thales Inflyt Experience plans
to connect aircraft flying over the Americas.
Sabbagh said SES still has a vision for some
GEO-HTS, a larger vision for MEO-HTS, and
while skeptical, hasn’t fully ruled out low-Earth
orbit-HTS. “We will continue to look at LEOs.
They may become an augmentation capabil-
ity with what we are doing in MEO, but MEO
is the sweet spot,” he said.
Sabbagh spoke to SpaceNews Staff Writer
Caleb Henry about SES’s HTS strategy.
Before O3b mPower, the last satellite you ordered was a 200-spot-beam HTS from Thales. When you look at the future of HTS for SES, it doesn’t look like just one orbit. That’s right. Our view of the future architec-
ture is one where we make the best use of our
orbits and spectrum. For data-centric applica-
tions, there will be increasing requirements for
flexibility and dynamically optimized coverage
Empowering a high-throughput evolution
CALEB HENRY
Why SES chief Karim Michel Sabbagh thinks no one orbit is fully right — or completely wrong
SPACENEWS.COM | 15
SES
and connectivity, while being able to scale-up
the system as markets develop. We can best do
that by using our assets in GEO and MEO, with
increasing emphasis on the latter based on our
very positive experience with O3b since its start
of operation in September 2014.
Will there be a role for high-throughput sat-ellites from a GEO standpoint in the future? The answer is clearly yes. By way of example,
this would apply well for applications where
the scalability of the system is not a must-have,
and where the target coverage is firmed up
with long-term visibility. Also, high-through-
put satellites from GEO provide a unique re-
silience layer for MEO-centric solutions, and
we can increasingly envisage such an inte-
grated architecture serving specific applica-
tions in the future. We could therefore expect
O3b mPower to work in tandem with SES-12,
SES-14, SES-15, and SES-17 to provide essen-
tial augmentation and resilience.
How do you delineate between where scal-ability is a must and where it’s not? It’s a very important question. My sense is there
are some applications, such as U.S. aeronau-
tical, where the routes are already defined, so
you can’t come up with, “I’m going to change
the travel route.” This is FAA-regulated. When
you have this level of visibility and clarity into
the market that you want to serve, you say scal-
ability is not going to be the primary criterion.
U.S. government requirements
for secure and resilient commu-
nication solutions would provide
in some cases the supportive ex-
ample for increasingly focusing
on scalability and flexibility. This
would apply in cases where a solu-
tion is required across multiples
sites and/or regions with rapidly
evolving demand. And, the solu-
tion has to have some dynami-
cally managed layer to cater to
high-peak periods. With O3b cur-
rent and O3b mPower, SES Net-
works can provide such a solution and scale
it as the prevalence of the underlying appli-
cations increases and the geographic distri-
bution expands rapidly.
Last time I talked to your CTO, Martin Hal-liwell, and asked him if software-defined fully digital payloads existed, he said no. And Martin is right. Some manufacturers have
a head start versus others, particularly those
who work for defense-related industries, be-
cause in defense there was a more acute need
to move into that area. So we have seen some
of this work. What Boeing is doing is taking it
one step further because they are deploying
something that is proven and has been up and
running outside the satellite industry, validat-
ing that this can be done. We’ve come a long
way, and still have some way to go.
“We will continue to look at LEOs. They may become an aug-mentation capability with what we are do-ing in MEO, but MEO is the sweet spot.”
Artist’s rendition of SES Network’s O3b mPower constellation.
16 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
SES
HTS EVOLUTION
Your competitors’ non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) investments have all been in LEO. Why has SES chosen to double-down on MEO?What we want to do in non-geostationary orbit
is to achieve the concept of a distributed net-
work, and often I refer to that; it’s very important
for data applications. I often refer to this con-
cept as it frames our thinking for best shaping
our network architecture in order to serve da-
ta-centric applications. We looked at LEO closely,
and continue to do so. The challenge with LEO
is that we haven’t reached convincing answers
to four key questions.
What are those four questions?First, do we know what technology can be
deployed to have a system that can serve dis-
tinctively our target markets?
It is unclear to us what could be a viable tech-
nology roadmap. In our assessment, the attri-
butes of scalability and flexibility, as we have
been able to bring to bear with Boeing under
the O3b mPower development, remain elusive
in the case of LEO.
The second is do we understand how it will
operate seamlessly with the rest of the archi-
tecture that we have in place?
SES is not starting with nothing. We are
starting already with the largest and most
resilient infrastructure that is out there. So
whatever we bring has to be complemen-
tary. It has to integrate so that the whole is
bigger than the sum of the parts. We haven’t
seen that yet. I am not excluding the possi-
bility that this can be done in the future, but
the ingredients and the timing of the answer
remain open for now.
Third, how do you achieve market ac-
cess for a LEO-centric business model that is
heavily reliant on the consumer broadband
market base?
As this is the market for which most of the
advocated systems are being pursued, it is
important to address this question head-on.
What we do know is that a consumer broad-
band business is licensed quite differently from
the business markets we serve at SES. Said dif-
ferently, our market access in more than 130
SES says O3b mPower’s “seven super power satellites” will deliver unri-valed connectivity.
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countries where we do business is not appli-
cable to the consumer broadband segment. I
would also posit that there is no playbook yet
for achieving access across 130 markets if you
intend to focus on the consumer broadband
opportunity.
Last but not least, when you add all of these
things, will the numbers add up?
A LEO constellation is very capital-inten-
sive. You’ve seen some of the numbers that
have been communicated publicly by those
entities of $3 billion to $4 billion to deploy the
first generation. So you invest $3 billion to $4
billion, you put up the first generation, and
then you have five years for the payback. And
you have to payback while knowing that the
yield is less than 30 percent, because 70 per-
cent of the time the satellites are flying over
empty territory. The economics simply do not
add up. There may be a breakthrough in tech-
nology, but we haven’t seen this yet.
So, no LEO play for SES, then?We will continue to look at LEOs. They may be-
come an augmentation capability with what we
are doing in MEO, but MEO is the sweet spot.
Why? Because at 8,000 kilometers, you have the
right level of latency, you have a distributed net-
work, you have a spacecraft that at any given
point in time sees land, so you can make reve-
nue all the time, and we have the right lifespan
for the fleet from a technology cycle standpoint,
so it’s not too long, but it’s not too short.
For mPower, SES switched from Thales Ale-nia Space to Boeing. How many bids did SES entertain?We don’t talk about suppliers and vendors; we
talk about industrial partners, because with
what we are doing, we wouldn’t claim to have
the playbook, so I want to be very clear about
this. Each and every time we move from one
innovation to another, a lot of credit goes to
the partners we interact with.
Two years ago when we were serving on
the O3b board pre-full acquisition, we shared
with management our approach to SES-14 and
SES-15, whereby we communicated to a pool
of investor partners what we wanted the sys-
tem to deliver. That was both in terms of per-
formance and economics. We went through
a number of working sessions and workshops
with them to identify exactly the configura-
tion of the system. Once we felt that this was
the right definition, we then said “against this
definition, what can you offer to us?” O3b
mPower followed the same process.
This approach describes well the O3b
mPower development and selection. Both
Thales and Boeing — plus other short listed
manufacturers — presented interesting ideas,
and at the end Boeing had the most compel-
ling proposition. I do not wish to comment
on the number of bids we entertained along
the process. Suffice to say that this was a very
comprehensive and diligent process.
I would like to remind all of us at the same
time that Thales continues to be today the in-
dustrial partner with the largest book of busi-
ness with SES, since they have the eight in
the manufacturing process and SES-17. But I
think that’s healthy competition. We are de-
lighted with what we have ahead of us with
Boeing. Even for them it’s a very transforma-
tional process because you are moving from
the traditional way of building bespoke geo-
stationary satellites.
We are really talking about [progressing
from] three to four years of construction, to
an initial development work that will take be-
tween 18 and 24 months, and after that we
move into an industrial model where we have
these seven and possibly others in the future
which can be produced under a more replica-
ble model using 3D-printing and other tech-
nologies.
“We don’t talk about suppliers and vendors, we talk about industrial partners, because with what we are doing, we wouldn’t claim to have the playbook.”
18 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
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HTS EVOLUTION
Content delivery networks to satellite operators: you need to evolve, starting yesterday
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That is how three large con-
tent delivery networks, all
substantial buyers of satel-
lite capacity, are describing
internet-based television.
No other technology in recent years
has had a bigger impact on video distri-
bution — the bulk of most satellite oper-
ator’s businesses — they said, than the
ability to send content from point A to
point B with the click of a mouse.
In an hour-long discussion at this
year’s World Satellite Business Week
conference in Paris, during which each
executive was peppered with questions
about the continued relevancy of sat-
ellite distribution, no one signalled an
exit from satellite anytime soon. But one
message was clear: terrestrial alternatives
are evolving much faster than satellites.
Much of the growth of internet-dis-
tributed content is in heavily developed
markets such as the United States, West-
ern Europe, Japan and South Korea. That
said, the rapid uptake of IP distribution
is making content delivery networks, or
CDNs, wonder if satellite will keep pace.
SATELLITE IN AN INTERNET WORLD“Most of the major satellite providers have
talked a great deal about the opportunity
to do this,” Encompass’s Walters said of
integrating satellite and IP-based dis-
tribution, “but they are incredibly early
on at actually making it a reality. I think
it can be an important component of
IP-distribution, but it’s still very early
days and I don’t think anyone has fully
executed on it.”
Walters said of the contracts
CALEB HENRY
“It’s fundamentally shaken up the business models of every part of the industry.” DAVID CRAWFORD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, SATELLITE AND MEDIA, ARQIVA
“[It] is a way to collapse all the retail distribution of TV.”
PHILIPPE BERNARD, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, GLOBECAST
“The growth rate has been so extraordinary, and the complexity that it’s added to the distribution system is amazing.” CHRIS WALTERS, CEO, ENCOMPASS
20 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
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Atlanta-based Encompass has up for
renewal, most customers are planning
much shorter satellite capacity leases —
on the order of five to 10 years instead of
the customary 10 to 20 years. The band-
width amount is the same, he said, but
the “duration for virtually every one of
these contracts is coming down.”
“If you’ve got the competitors who are
getting more efficient by 20 to 25 per-
cent per annum, then satellite needs to
follow that or else … we might change
the definition of what mass market is,”
added U.K.-based Arqiva’s Crawford.
Crawford said if satellite costs can
continue to come down, and flexibility
— this year’s buzzword — continues to
go up, then satellite will hold as a main-
stream distribution infrastructure for Ar-
qiva now and in the future.
“But if the satellite industry was to
stick with high-priced fixed 10-years
risk on their broadcast service providers,
then I think the shift will begin to move
away,” he warned. “I think the economics
of alternative forms are moving pretty
quickly, and no one wants to be stuck
with a risk when there is too much un-
certainty in the market.”
THE WHY OF IP DISTRIBUTION’S SUCCESS ABI Research, in a January report, pro-
jected a seven-fold increase in live, lin-
ear over-the-top (OTT) video services
worldwide from just over $1 billion in
revenue last year to $7 billion by 2021.
Cable, satellite, and even some less flex-
ible Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
services are losing business to OTT, the
research firm said.
Arqiva, Encompass and Globecast all
support television channels that out-
source distribution and media manage-
ment services. IP-delivery, championed
by the success of Netflix, Amazon and
others, has become a new low-cost
means of getting video to consumers.
Globecast’s Bernard said pay-TV plat-
forms, which are often early adopters
Globecast’s Philipe Bernard, Arqiva’s David Crawford and Encompass’ Chris Walters at Euroconsult’s World Satellite Business Week 2017 in Paris.
of bandwidth-intensive broadcast up-
grades like high definition, have likely
seen the biggest impact. New entrants
are also using IP-delivery to go straight to
customers with no middleman, he said.
IP distribution is not without its
challenges, however. Walters said the
infrastructure “requires substantial in-
cremental investments based on the rate
of growth in viewing,” which can make
it difficult to scale. To reach multiple
small locations, Encompasss uses fiber,
IP-distribution and distribution via pub-
lic internet services. For point-to-mul-
tipoint (getting identical content from
one location to many), satellite still reigns
supreme, he said.
Satellite also persists in areas where
the terrestrial infrastructure either doesn’t
exist or isn’t reliable.
“If you take the example of Africa, sat-
ellite is the key enabler to core a large
population, and any attempt to get an
OTT offer in these countries has not been
very successful,” said Bernard.
Eastern Europe and parts of Asia also
remain satellite-first markets, he said.
ULTRA-HD STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIMEMany satellite operators had expected
a larger uptick of Ultra-HD channels
by now, which they hoped would off-
set at least some of the losses incurred
to IPTV and OTT broadcasts.
But while Ultra-HD is fairing bet-
ter than 3D television did, it’s still not
mainstream. In March 2016, Northern
Sky Research projected more than 785
Ultra-HD channels will use satellite de-
livery by 2025, but estimated only 1 per-
cent of all channels exist in Ultra-HD.
“How many UHD channels are there
that are commercially viable? It’s very,
very few,” said Crawford.
“We would love it just as the satellite
providers would love it,” said Walters. “We
have channels where we do UHD chan-
nels and HD channels, and we would
love to do three tiers of channels for
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IT’S NO SECRET that high-throughput
satellites (HTS) employing frequency reuse
and spot beam coverage are in vogue.
Nearly every satellite operator now
has an HTS strategy, whether that’s global
coverage or the occasional payload. A
newer trend is the belief that satellites
can be truly “flexible” — that satellites
can change where, when, how much and
even potentially what kind of capacity
they beam down.
It’s likely that this trend is the result of
the higher cost of HTS satellites. Hughes
Network Systems’ Jupiter-3 satellites
will cost about three times as much
as the average satellite, according to
manufacturer Space Systems Loral. Like a
high-priced steak, its a shame to let any
of that expensive, high-quality capacity
ever go to waste.
SES and ViaSat have both stressed
the ability to put down capacity from
their respective O3b mPower and
ViaSat-3 constellations specifically
where it is needed via thousands of
narrow spot beams. Thales Alenia Space’s
vice president of telecommunications
business, Bertrand Maureau, described
Inmarsat’s fifth Global Xpress satellite,
ordered in June, as one that will “set a
new benchmark for flexibility in high-
throughput satellites.”
In a change of tone from previous
years, several satellite operators at
World Satellite Business Week this month
ranked flexibility as one of, if not their
highest, priorities for future spacecraft.
“Flexibility is No. 1,” said Fabio
Alencar, Star One’s head of business
development, during a Sept. 14 panel
discussion.
“We just launched [Star One D1] last
year … and people are still coming to me
saying ‘can you put this beam over here?’
We have demand we didn’t plan for four
years ago for this region.”
Barrie Woolston, AsiaSat’s chief
commercial operator, listed flexibility as a
principle characteristic of the company’s
first major HTS satellite, the soon-to-be-
IS FLEXIBILITY SATELLITE’S NEW MUST-HAVE FEATURE?
Eutelsat CTO Johann Leroy
ordered AsiaSat-10, describing it not as a
one-off but a requirement from this point
forward.
“The key thing is making sure we
build in sufficient flexibility into that to
enable us to be adaptable to the market,”
he said. “Long gone are the days where
you can predict the market and have
fixed beams … because the market is so
dynamic.”
Fleet operator Eutelsat is a
frontrunner with flexible satellites thanks
to Eutelsat Quantum, a new spacecraft
with European Space Agency and U.K.
Space Agency funding that will be able to
change the size, shape and throughput
of its eight beams based on customer
demand. Airbus Defence and Space
and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. are
building the satellite, which Arianespace
is scheduled to launch in 2019.
Even with Quantum, though, Eutelsat
Chief Technology Officer Yohann Leroy
said there is more progress needed.
“The dream is not full get because
the technologies that we are going to
implement around Quantum are not yet
adapted to our video business,” he said.
Video broadcasts don’t demand the
flexibility that data and government
services need, he said, but the goal
of having flexibility that television
customers want is still on the company’s
wish list.
“An ideal situation, and we are not
there yet, is to have the capability of
building a totally orbital-slot-agnostic
satellite with a payload that you can
change the beams, you can change the
frequencies, and move them around,” said
Ken Betaharon, ABS’s chief technology
officer. “We would like to have as much
flexibility as possible so that in realtime
you can change the shape of the beam
or you can direct the resources of the
satellite to different parts of the world.”
For ABS and other operators, at least
these levels of flexibility are, even if not
yet real, now much, much closer to the
realm of possibility. —Caleb Henry
all our clients. It would be a great
business opportunity for us; we’re
just not seeing incredibly strong
demand for it right now.”
Internet-delivery can cause
variable service quality, reducing
the resolution and frame-rate of
video, essentially voiding the pur-
pose of watching Ultra-HD in the
first place. For these reasons, the
satellite industry believes it has a
meaningful advantage over IPTV
and OTT here. Ultra-HD channels
also require substantially more ca-
pacity than standard or high defi-
nition channels, upwards of a full
transponder for one or two chan-
nels (or three to four with high-ef-
ficiency video coding).
22 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
SATELLITE CYBERSECURITY
AS CHINA MAKES PLANS to launch additional
satellites to test “hack-proof” quantum encryp-
tion technologies, a recent study by German
physicists says that Europe could build a low-cost
quantum encryptions network of its own by re-
cycling technology developed for the European
Data Relay System (EDRS).
Dubbed the Space Data Highway, EDRS uses
laser communication terminals developed by
German firm Tesat-Spacecom to transfer data
from Europe’s Sentinel remote-sensing satellites
to ground stations in real time via relay space-
craft in geostationary orbit.
The technology, currently aboard Eutelsat-9B
and Sentinels – 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B, which form the
European Earth-observation constellation Coperni-
cus, German physicist say, could be used for quan-
tum key distribution with only modest upgrades.
“The technology is very close to what you actu-
ally need for a quantum key distribution system,”
said Christoph Marquardt, from the Max Planck
Institute for the Science of Light, Germany, who
led a study, published in the journal Optica, that
looked at the usability of the laser system for the
purposes of quantum key distribution.
“We did some measurements from a GEO
satellite at a ground station in Tenerife and we
found that the light traveling all this distance via
the laser beams is very quantum noise limited as
it reaches the ground station.”
The finding, according to Marquardt, gives
Europe a competitive advantage to cost-effec-
tively develop a possible space-based quantum
key distribution network.
Europe’s shot at space-based quantum encryption
China currently appears to be the front-run-
ner in space-based quantum communications. In
August, Chinese scientists announced they had
managed to send an encryption key encoded in
photon quantum states from a satellite to ground
stations at the distance between 645 kilometers
and 1,200 kilometers. The experiment, involving
the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (Quess)
satellite, was the first successful demonstration of
space-based quantum key distribution technology.
Marquardt believes Europe’s advantage is in the
relatively low cost compared to the Chinese project.
“The Chinese mission, that’s a little bit like the
Apollo program,” said Marquardt. “There were
huge resources put into that. What we are trying
to do is a bit more like SpaceX. We are trying to
make this economically viable.”
Acceptable cost, according to Marquardt, could
inspire governments of ESA member states to
invest into building a network of quantum key
distribution satellites and ground stations. In
fact, Marquardt believes Europe could possibly
have such technology up and running within
five to 10 years.
To enable actual quantum key distribution,
the laser communication terminal would have
to incorporate a quantum-based random num-
ber generator that creates the random keys to be
distributed confidentially to institutions such as
embassies or banks.
“We have teamed up with Tesat and some
other industry players and we are now planning
to build a quantum key distribution satellite,” said
Marquardt. “Within five years we want to have
something that can offer quantum key distribu-
tion on a commercial basis and is economically TEREZA PULTAROVA
SPACENEWS.COM | 23
ESA
viable. The plan that we have is very ambitious
and it’s only possible because we know that we
already have those space qualified technologies.”
Germany’s space agency, DLR, also partici-
pated in the study.
According to Dean Cheng, a China specialist
at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, China
might be able to establish a quantum communica-
tion network in space within the next three years.
“Chinese advances in this area over the past
several years have been notably accelerating, and
faster than many had expected,” Cheng said. “If
the Chinese are successful in introducing a quan-
tum-based communications network within the
next year, then it is probably not that great a leap
before they can extend that same communica-
tions network to space.”
According to Cheng, China said they would
introduce a commercially available ground-based
quantum-based communications network by
the end of this summer. However, it is not clear
whether they have done so.
Quantum key distribution is increasingly
seen as a necessity for secure communications
in the future. Currently, confidential communi-
cations are encrypted using mathematical algo-
rithms. However, as scientists make major leaps
towards quantum computers, such mathemat-
ical algorithms are nearing their date of expiry.
Capable of conducting multiple calculations in
parallel, quantum computers are expected to be
able to easily solve the most complicated math-
ematical operations in a fraction of the time re-
quired by conventional computers.
“In the last five to seven years, there has been
a lot of progress in some physical quantum sys-
tems,” said Marquardt.
“The quantum computer now really becomes
more likely to come in the next 10 or 15 years. There
can be a 10 to 20 percent risk that this comes in
the next 10 or 15 years and if you have this risk,
the consequences of this risk are very drastic be-
cause all the encryption would be broken then.”
Communications requiring the highest level
of security currently relies on confidential keys,
which are as long as the message itself and only
known to the two parties involved in the com-
munications exchange. However, as each key
can only be used once, problems arise when it
comes to effectively distributing such keys, ex-
plained Marquardt.
Quantum cryptography, which encodes in-
formation into the quantum states of particles,
EDRS-A is the first node of the European Data Relay System (EDRS). Nicknamed the ‘SpaceDataHighway’ by industry, EDRS complements current downlink infrastructures and allows for near-realtime services on a global scale.
comes in handy, as it is inherently immune to
eavesdropping. Every attempt to intercept the
communication by a third party affects the quan-
tum state of the particles, which alerts the recip-
ient to the interference.
“This is the first time where you can prove that
someone listened in,” said Marquardt. “The trick is
that you send many of those states and then from
measuring those states, you can first test whether
someone listened in and if nobody listened in,
then you can generate the joint key between A
to B and use that later on for safe encryption.”
Quantum key distribution systems running on
optical fibers already exist. However, Marquardt
said, these systems face major limitations as the
quantum states of the particles within the opti-
cal fibers deteriorate with distance. It is practically
impossible to send quantum information over a
distance larger then 200 kilometers.
“That’s where the idea comes in to use satel-
lites,” said Marquardt. “In the optical fibers you
always have some loss when the photons are
propagating and that after some time kills your
quantum state. When you propagate to a satellite,
you have the atmosphere but then there is vac-
uum and in vacuum there is no loss.”
With the looming prospect of functioning
quantum computers coming in the next decade,
interest in space-based quantum key distribution
is on the rise. The European Space Agency has
been looking at quantum key distribution since
the early 2000s but has fallen behind the Chi-
nese due to funding issues. The Canadian Space
Agency is currently planning a low-cost micro-
satellite mission QEYSSat to demonstrate quan-
tum key distribution.
24 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
ADCO
LE M
ARYL
AND
AER
OSP
ACE
LEO CONSTELLATIONS
constellation of routers in space which
happen to be satellites. Each of these
routers is linked — north, south, east,
west — with the four adjacent satellites
in six polar orbits,” Rigolle said at the
Space Technology and Investment Fo-
rum in San Francisco Aug. 30. “We can
link Tokyo to Singapore to New York,
depending on our customers’ needs,
allowing rooftop-to-rooftop connec-
tivity, which gives lower latency than
is possible with fiber and higher secu-
rity than is possible with any kind of
patchwork network.”
If General Motors Corp., for exam-
ple, wants to send data from Sao Paulo,
Brazil, to the firm’s Detroit headquarters,
Supernet Ltd., the Pakistani cor-
porate-data-network service
provider, announced plans
this month to establish a stra-
tegic partnership with Leo-
Sat Enterprises, a Washington-based
startup planning to launch a constella-
tion of 78 to 108 communications satel-
lites into low Earth orbit to offer secure,
high-speed connections for businesses
and government agencies.
LeoSat plans to provide Supernet with
more than three gigabits of capacity on
the global communications network it
is developing, which comprises satellites
built by Thales Alenia Space of France
and Italy based on the firm’s EliteBus
flown by Iridium Communications on
its Iridium Next constellation and O3B
Networks first-generation constellation.
LeoSat raised $11.5 million in a seed
investment round that included an un-
disclosed amount from Japanese sat-
ellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT. LeoSat
plans to raise $100 million in a Series A
round, which JSAT will anchor with “a
significant stake,” LeoSat chief executive
Mark Rigolle told SpaceNews.
In total, LeoSat plans to raise $3.75 bil-
lion with $2.5 billion coming from the
French investment bank BPIfrance to
establish what Rigolle calls “a true data
network in space.”
“Instead of thinking about a con-
stellation of satellites, think about a
LeoSat CEO Mark Rigolle, left, and OneWeb COO Samer Halawi, right, were the token LEO operators at Eurconsult’s World Satellite Business Week in Paris earlier this month.
LeoSat forges pact to transmit data for Pakistan’s Supernet
DEBRA WERNER
“Instead of thinking about a constellation of satellites, think about a constellation of routers in space which happen to be satellites.”
— Mark Rigolle, LeoSat CEO
SPACENEWS.COM | 25
THAL
ES A
LEN
IA S
PACE
/LEO
SAT
data would travel in Ka-band to a satel-
lite that would forward the data packets
using laser inter-satellite links to a satel-
lite near the destination where it would
travel down in Ka-band.
“All this happens in the speed of light,
which in space is it is roughly 300,000
kilometers per second,” Rigolle said. “Over
longer distances, we lose out compared
to fiber because the signal has to travel
up 1,400 kilometers and down on ei-
ther side. But we make up for that after
8,000 kilometers distance because we
are going faster in space.”
LeoSat’s constellation of 78 to 108 low-Earth-or-biting satellites are being built by Thales Alenia Space.
Before building its initial constellation, LeoSat plans to launch two smaller satellites in 2019 to demonstrate inter-satellite communications links.
“We can link Tokyo to Singapore to New York, depending on our cus-tomers’ needs, allowing rooftop-to-rooftop con-nectivity, which gives lower latency than is possible with fiber and higher security than is possible with any kind of patchwork network.”
Before building its initial constel-
lation, which includes 13 active satel-
lites and one orbiting spare in each of
six polar orbits, LeoSat plans to launch
two smaller satellites into adjacent or-
bital planes in 2019 to demonstrate its
inter-satellite communications links.
“There is nothing science fiction
about using lasers in space,” Rigolle
said. “We’ve noticed investors want to
see this fly before we’ll be able to raise
the large amounts of equity we need at
reasonable prices.”
After that demonstration, LeoSat plans
to complete financing the constellation
and begin producing “five, six, seven,
eight” satellites per month in late 2019
or early 2020.
Because LeoSat needs more money
than venture capital usually gives start-
ups, the firm is wooing strategic inves-
tors that could profit by using LeoSat’s
network or reselling its communica-
tions services. LeoSat’s target markets
include government agencies and large
enterprises in the oil and gas, financial,
maritime, media and telecommunica-
tions industries.
26 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
NAS
A
COMMENTARY By Mark R. Whittington
President Donald Trump signed an
executive order this summer recre-
ating the National Space Council,
a body that has not existed since George
H. W. Bush was president. A number of
space luminaries were present for the
event, including Apollo moonwalker
Buzz Aldrin.
Buzz’s presence was ironic since
he had been present both when Presi-
dent George H. W. Bush announced the
Space Exploration Initiative and when
President Barack Obama ended Project
What the National Space Council can do — and what it cannot
Constellation that was started by Presi-
dent George W. Bush. Whether this fact
constitutes an omen for things to come
cannot be properly evaluated.
The fact that Trump has revived the
Space Council and has placed it in the
charge of Vice President Mike Pence, a
space exploration enthusiast, suggests a
certain seriousness with which the ad-
ministration regards space as a venue for
government policy. Scott Pace, a NASA
veteran, has been named its executive
director. The Council will coordinate
U.S. President Donald Trump, surrounded by law-makers and astronauts, signs the executive order reestablishing the National Space Council.
SPACENEWS.COM | 27
space policy across the length and
breadth of the government, including
NASA, the military, and those depart-
ments that handle international affairs
and commerce.
It will have its work cut out for it.
NASA has been mired in confusion in
regards to exploring the heavens for a
long time. Commercial space, not a fac-
tor the last time a Space Council con-
vened, has become an increasing part
of space operations. A number of coun-
tries in Asia — China, Japan, and India
among them — aspire to be major play-
ers on the high frontier.
A National Space Council can im-
plement sound space policy only if it is
well run and only if such policy exists.
While the Space Council can offer good
advice, the formulation of space policy
is in the purview of the president of the
United States. He must articulate it and
he must sell it, to Congress, the com-
mercial sector, potential international
partners, and to the general public. If no
space policy exists or there is one that
is confused and dysfunctional, even the
most well run National Space Council
cannot make it work.
MARK WHITTINGTON, WHO WRITES
FREQUENTLY ABOUT SPACE AND POLITICS, HAS
JUST PUBLISHED A POLITICAL STUDY OF SPACE
EXPLORATION ENTITLED “WHY IS IT SO HARD
TO GO BACK TO THE MOON?” HE BLOGS AT
CURMUDGEONS CORNER.
Remember, 28 years ago a National
Space Council existed, chaired by a vice
president named Dan Quayle who, like
Pence, was a space enthusiast. Presi-
dent Bush had offered a bold new pro-
gram that set America’s course back to
the moon and on to Mars. But he for-
got to sell the Space Exploration Initia-
tive to Congress, the public, or even his
own NASA administrator, a man named
Richard Truly who found it to be a dis-
traction from the space station project
and worked to undermine the program.
When Bill Clinton replaced George H.
W. Bush as president, the space explo-
ration program he buried was a corpse,
already starved of funds and support.
The lesson therein is that President
Trump cannot just content himself with
making the big speech, the one that ev-
ery president makes when he is rolling
out some new space initiative, in imita-
tion of John F. Kennedy. He has to make
certain that whatever he proposes, a re-
turn to the moon, for example, is kept
on track and is not stymied by bureau-
cratic infighting. The National Space
Council can be an invaluable tool in
that regard, making sure that the various
President Trump cannot just content himself with making the big speech, the one that every president makes when he is rolling out some new space initiative, in imitation of John F. Kennedy.
government departments and agencies
are on the same page.
Congress has to be consulted where it
comes to space policy. To further the free
flow of dialogue it might be a good idea
to make the chairs and ranking mem-
bers of the House and Senate subcom-
mittees that oversee NASA part of the
Space Council. They can provide valu-
able input as to what can pass Congress
and what may need selling in real time.
Commercial space companies need a
seat at the table as well. The time is rap-
idly becoming past when the private sec-
tor is just a passive instrument to build
the hardware that NASA and the military
need for their operations. With SpaceX
aiming for a Mars colony and compa-
nies like Planetary Resources and Moon
Express planning the mining of the as-
teroids and the moon, respectively, the
commercial space sector is becoming
a group of active players in the opening
of the high frontier of space.
With a good, well-thought-out pol-
icy, a president willing to work for it and
sell it, and everyone seated at the table,
the National Space Council can make
proposals become reality. Otherwise,
as it was during the first Bush admin-
istration, the Space Council will be all
but useless.
28 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
NAS
A
COMMENTARY Ken Sembach
Are we alone? We are at a time in
history when we find ourselves
well positioned to answer this
haunting question. It is by no means
an easy one to answer, but the idea of
finding other worlds beyond our so-
lar system capable of supporting life,
or perhaps even evidence of life itself,
is no longer science fiction or a phil-
osophical conundrum—it is a science
experiment in the making.
In designing this experiment there is
an important lesson to be learned from
the search for the Higgs Boson, the fun-
damental particle that confers mass to
the entire universe. The Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), with which the Higgs was
discovered, was designed and built to
deliver a scientifically meaningful an-
swer to the question “Does the Higgs
Boson exist?” regardless of whether or
not the elusive particle was actually de-
tected. In other words, the constraints
that could be placed on a null result
were just as powerful, and meaningful,
as those resulting from an actual detec-
tion. The human and financial resources
invested in the LHC paid off famously,
resulting in the awarding of the 2013
Nobel Prize in Physics to François En-
glert and Peter Higgs, and forever deep-
ened our understanding of elementary
particle physics.
Here at the Space Telescope Sci-
ence Institute in Baltimore, Maryland,
we have been simulating what would
it take to make a definitive detection of
Earth-like worlds in nearby star systems,
or to rule them out with high confi-
dence. We expect such planets to ex-
ist, but don’t know for sure if there are
In searching for life, go big or stay home
some that are capable of supporting
life like that found on Earth. Just as the
Higgs was expected to exist but could
not be found (and confirmed) until the
proper experiment was performed,
we must design a similarly robust and
well-reasoned search to answer our
compelling question. We start with the
fact that we know where all stars within
the solar neighborhood (nearer than
about 50 light-years) are located. Any
further than that and exoEarths would
be too far away, and too faint, to study
in detail with even the most ambitious
telescopes being imagined. Thanks to
NASA’s Kepler mission, we know that
The hunt for exoplanets made impressive gains with the launch of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. The hunt will continue with the launch of JWST and WFIRST.
We could build a smaller telescope and hope we detect a handful of potentially Earth-like planets and hope that one is habitable. But hope is not a strategy.
SPACENEWS.COM | 29
NAS
A/ST
SCI
roughly 1 in 5 stars harbors a planet sim-
ilar in size and temperature to Earth, an
important boundary condition for wa-
ter to exist in liquid form. We then have
to consider that not all of those planets
would be aligned in a way to see them
at all times, add in the fact that many
nearby stars are different types and ages
than the sun, and recognize that their
planets may have different evolution-
ary paths than that of Earth. This leads
to the conclusion that the search for life
must be extensive enough to accommo-
date the possibility that the signatures
of life we seek may not be identical to
those found on Earth today.
Today, building on the technolo-
gies developed for the James Webb
Space Telescope (JWST) and using the
planned launch capabilities of the Space
Launch System (SLS), we now know we
can build what we need, a high-defini-
tion space telescope with a 12-15-meter
primary mirror that would systemati-
cally explore and characterize the at-
mospheres of nearly every sun-like star
system within 50 light years. This tele-
scope would also provide clues about
the surface features of these extraso-
lar worlds, perhaps even allowing us to
study seasonal changes. It is our best
shot at discovering life beyond the solar
system and offers unparalleled oppor-
tunities for scientific discoveries across
the entire field of astronomy.
We could build a smaller, less am-
bitious space observatory in the hope
that we’d detect a handful of potentially
Earth-like planets and hope that one is
habitable. But hope is not a strategy for
success. Neither the mighty Hubble nor
JWST, the largest space telescope yet
built, is capable of imaging Earth-like
planets around other stars. Moreover,
we need not only to detect potential
Earths, but also to characterize their
atmospheric signatures to assess the
KEN SEMBACH IS DIRECTOR OF THE SPACE
TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE IN BALTIMORE,
MARYLAND.
presence of life. Investment in an un-
derscoped observatory for this purpose
carries enormous financial and scien-
tific risks. Clearly, this epic experiment
should be done properly or not at all.
A large ultraviolet-optical-infrared
space observatory is the only facility that
has the capability to survey and perform
detailed follow-up characterizations of
at least several dozen, perhaps as many
as a hundred, exoEarths within the next
15-20 years. It is a serious candidate to
be the next flagship observatory in NA-
SA’s line of Great Observatories, and a
logical, bold successor to Hubble, JWST,
and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey
Telescope, the last of which is slated to
mature and test light-nulling technol-
ogies necessary for a life-finding tele-
scope to see exoEarths in the habitable
zones around their host stars.
A great nation has the imperative
to be bold in its exploration endeavors
and quests for knowledge. There is no
bolder pursuit than understanding our
place in the universe and the origins
of life itself. This quest will require the
skills and talents of industry, academia,
government centers, and policy makers,
united in a common purpose to leave a
legacy of inspiration and space explo-
ration for future generations. We know
how to answer the profound question –
“Are we alone?” – the answer to which
will change the course of history. We
just need to do it right. SN
Hubble and James Webb are big telescopes, but neither are capable of imaging Earth-like planets around other stars. To do that, astronomers would need a telescope with a 12-15-meter primary mirror.
With the proliferation of small
satellites, coupled with the
data demands from tradi-
tional larger satellites, the
industry is now facing a challenge to
transmit all the data generated to Earth
in a timely and efficient manner. This is
creating many new business models and
opportunities for investors.
With several thousand smallsats set
to launch over the next several years,
and the expanding capacity for those
spacecraft to generate larger and larger
amounts of data, the downlink bottleneck
would continue to grow but for emerg-
ing business models for processing and
transmitting data.
A key trend is the so-called Uberization
of ground stations and the optimization
of downlink networks. RBC Signals and
Atlas Space Operations are competitors
in the satellite downlink version of the
ride-hailing economy.
Using on-board signal processing and
machine-to-machine communication
built into the smallsats, downlink can be
further optimized to the preferred down-
link station. These models have been well
received by the market and both RBC
Signals and Atlas Space Operations have
been successfully raising money. Atlas has
a current funding round open that is be-
ing led by Space Angels. RBC Signals —in
which I’m an investor — closed on $1.5
million in funding in March. RBC’s round
was led by San Francisco-based Bee Part-
ners and other investors included Abstract
Ventures, Blacktop Capital, Comet Labs.
Another key invitation within down-
link optimization is changing the nature
of the ground stations themselves. Atlas
Satellite downlink in the ride-hailing era
attracting investors; Analytical Space filed
a form D document this month indicating
that they have raised $4.4 million in initial
funding. Notably, one of the lead investors
was the recently established MIT Venture
fund. I’m also an investor.
Laser-based transmission has one
distinct disadvantage in that cloud cover
can easily block transmission. However,
with the increase of machine-to-machine
in-space communication, data can be
routed around low Earth orbit until a
cloud-free, open downlink channel can
be found. Since the data-transmission
rates are so high, a small break in cloud
cover can permit successful downlink.
Another innovation minimizing the
need for downlink is more in-space
computing resources. Imagine that te-
lemetry from a smallsat constellation is
designed to answer a specific predictive
problem such as weather forecasting. If
the computing resources to answer such
a problem were in space, only the answer
to the question posed would need to be
transmitted down to Earth. Expect ad-
ditional business models to surface that
focus on in-space computing resources
and processing.
The most valuable part of any satellite
constellation is always the data. As the
hardware generating the data contin-
ues to proliferate, business models that
help optimize how that data is captured,
analyzed, processed and sent to Earth
will continue to evolve, creating many
opportunities for investors. SN
DYLAN TAYLOR IS A LEADING SPACE ANGEL
INVESTOR AND PATRON CHAIR OF THE
COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT FEDERATION.
announced this month a partnership with
NASA for portable ground-based receiv-
ers. Atlas will be working alongside NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, according
to the announcement, to “advance the
development of the Atlas LINKSTM sys-
tem” which it describes as “a lightweight,
high-performance alternative to traditional
parabolic, mechanically steered radio
frequency (RF) satellite ground stations.”
Another model that has the possibility
to change the data transmission game is
lase- based downlink. Analytical Space, a
recent spin-out from Harvard University
and founded by White House Office of
Management and Budget alumni Justin
Oliveira and Dan Nevius, uses laser-based
transmission to vastly increase the amount
of data that can be transmitted per unit of
time. Their business model seems to be
30 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17
WIKICOMMONS
CAPITAL CONTRIBUTIONS Dylan Taylor
SPACENEWS.COM | 31
ON THE HORIZON
8-12 SciTech Forumscitech.aiaa.org Kissimmee, FL
21-24 Pacific Telecommunications Conferenceptc.org Honolulu, HI
JANUARY
DATE EVENT PLACE
SEPTEMBER
25-29 International Astronautical Congresswww.iac2017.org
Adelaide, Australia
NOVEMBER
7-9 19th annual Global MilSatComwww.globalmilsatcom.com London, UK
8-9 Global SatShowglobalsatshow.com Istanbul, Turkey
2-3 Satellite Innovation Symposiumsatelliteinnovation.com
Mountain View, CA
11-12 ISPCSispcs.com Las Cruces, NM
DATE EVENT PLACE
24-26 Space Tech Expo Europewww.spacetechexpo.eu
Bremen, Ger-many
18-205th Additive Aerospace Summitinfocastinc.com/event/additive-aero-space/
Los Aneles, CA
19 Women in Aerospace Awards Dinnerwomeninaerospace.org/events/
Washington, DC
OCTOBER
5-7 SmallSat Symposiumsmallsatshow.com
Silicon Valley, CA
FEBRUARY
5-7 Spacecomspacecomexpo.com Houston, TX
DECEMBER
16-17 NewSpace Europenewspace-europe.spacefrontier.org/2017/
Luxembourg City
8-12 SciTech Forumscitech.aiaa.org Kissimmee, FL
12-15 Satellite 20182018.satshow.com
Washington, D.C.
28-29 Paris Space Weekparis-space-week.com Paris, France
MARCH
16-19 Space Symposiumspacesymposium.org
Colorado Springs, CO
APRIL
FOUST FORWARD Jeff Foust
What you think of Jim Bridenstine as
a potential NASA administrator de-
pends, it seems, on your relationship
to the space industry.
Inside the industry, the White House’s nom-
ination of Bridenstine early this month received
a warm reception. Individuals and organizations
lined up to support his nomination, citing his ex-
perience as a member of Congress, where he has
been active on space policy issues and willing to
talk with almost everyone on the subject.
Mike Gold, chairman of the FAA’s Commercial
Space Transportation Advisory Committee, re-
called his first meeting with Bridenstine. Gold put
90 minutes on a parking meter near Capitol Hill,
thinking that would be more than enough.
It wasn’t. “It was a two-hour conversation,” Gold
said at a space law forum in Washington Sept. 15.
“He owes me for that parking ticket.”
Outside the industry, where Bridenstine isn’t
well known except in his home district in Okla-
homa, the reaction has been different. Many have
pointed to comments he made on the House floor
in 2013, where he claimed global temperatures
weren’t changing and any changes in the past
could be correlated to natural, and not human,
activity. Headlines declared Bridenstine a “climate
change denier.”
Bridenstine has stayed quiet since the White
House announced his nomination, but offered
some opinions in a questionnaire he submitted
to the Senate Commerce Committee in advance
of a confirmation hearing. He focused on both
his experience and his big-picture views of what
NASA could do with him at the helm.
“With NASA’s global leadership, we will pioneer
the solar system, sending humans back to the Moon,
The political climate of a NASA administrator nomination
to Mars, and beyond. This requires a consistent,
sustainable strategy for deep space exploration,”
he wrote in the questionnaire.
He also, somewhat indirectly, addressed the
question of climate science. “NASA must continue
studying our home planet. Unfortunately, Earth
science sometimes gets pitted against planetary
science for resources,” he wrote. “NASA must con-
tinue to advance both Earth science and planetary
science for the benefit of mankind.”
Bridenstine tried to illustrate that by noting that
Mars was once a warmer, wetter world. “At some
point, Mars changed dramatically and we should
strive to understand why,” he wrote. “Studying other
planets can inform our understanding of Earth.”
That’s true, although the mechanisms that
shaped Martian climate, such as solar wind strip-
ping away its atmosphere, don’t apply to Earth and
the growing concentrations of carbon dioxide in
its atmosphere. Bridenstine faced more criticism
for his views: “NASA nominee wants to study cli-
mate change — on Mars,” read one headline in an
environmental publication. (Good thing NASA has
been funding scientists to do just that for years.)
While Bridenstine has been limited in what he
can say, others have stepped up to his defense.
“As I read some of the material that’s been coming
out of the media, I don’t recognize the man that’s
being described. I just don’t,” Gold said. “If you care
about Earth science, that’s a reason to vote for Jim
Bridenstine, not against him.”
What Bridenstine believes about climate change
and the importance of Earth science may, in the
long run, be irrelevant. How much NASA will get
to spend on Earth science, including missions and
other research linked to climate change, will largely
be shaped by White House policy decisions and
congressional appropriations.
“Everybody that’s interacted with him say he’s
level-headed, pragmatic, thoughtful, has given a
lot of attention to what’s needed for a good future
space program,” John Logsdon, founding director
and professor emeritus of the Space Policy Institute
at George Washington University, said of Briden-
stine during a Sept. 12 panel discussion held by
Politico. “I think he is a perfectly reasonable choice.”
These days, “perfectly reasonable” can be con-
sidered high praise. SN
32 | SPACENEWS 09.25.17