Tag: communications satellites

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Amazon lines up dozens of launches to put thousands of Kuiper satellites in orbit

Amazon is finally taking decisive action on its Kuiper communications satellite constellation, securing the rights to as many as 83 launches from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and of course Blue Origin. Interestingly, none of the launch vehicles set to be used have flown before — but there’s plenty of time to change that as Amazon’s 3,236-strong constellation takes shape.

Announced during the Space Symposium conference in Colorado Springs, the contracts have no fixed value associated with them, and an Amazon representative declined to provide any kind of ballpark. The company said that it has secured, or perhaps pre-ordered, 18 Ariane 6 vehicles (the company’s largest contract ever), 12 New Glenns from Blue Origin, and 38 Vulcan Centaurs from ULA. There is an option to purchase additional New Glenns, and an existing contract for 9 Atlas Vs from ULA.

A back-of-napkin calculation puts the lower bound of the value of this new deal at around $10 billion, though of course this is only one part of a much larger operation (and depends heavily on launch costs, which are continually in flux). The estimate simply shows that Amazon is ready to make commitments at the 11-digit scale to get things moving.

“Securing launch capacity from multiple providers has been a key part of our strategy from day one,” said Kuiper VP of technology Rajeev Badyal in the Amazon press release. And indeed, they have said as much for some time. “This approach reduces risk associated with launch vehicle stand-downs and supports competitive long-term pricing for Amazon, producing cost savings that we can pass on to our customers. These large, heavy-lift rockets also mean we can deploy more of our constellation with fewer launches, helping simplify our launch and deployment schedule.”

Amazon declined to provide any timing or logistical details, but a press event is scheduled for later this morning at Space Symposium. I will update this story with more information if anything substantial is provided on the record.

A notable absence from the list of launch providers is SpaceX, a natural enough omission given the intense yet largely unacknowledged rivalry between it and the Bezos-backed Blue Origin. SpaceX launched its Starlink satellites on its own Falcon 9 rockets, and Kuiper and its partners seem eager to show that there are cost-effective alternatives out there.

The fact that not one of these launch vehicles has taken a payload to orbit doesn’t seem to have given Amazon much pause. The Ariane 6 is perhaps the closest to launch readiness and is set to fly this year. The Vulcan Centaur may be close behind, but it’s relying on the BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, which have yet to materialize. It’s hard to say when New Glenn will be ready, as Blue Origin has been rather quiet about its development and testing. Amazon did note that it has contracted the Swiss company Beyond Gravity to build the satellite dispensers that will ultimately send Kuiper hardware on its way.

The next immediate milestone for the project won’t be a full-scale launch, however, but a small-scale test of prototype satellites to verify the work they’ve been doing on the surface and in simulators. Those will go up late in 2022 aboard ABL Space Systems RS1 rockets.

After that, it’s likely that the Atlas Vs will be used first to put the first few batches into orbit and do a bit of a shake out of the deployment and activation process with production satellites. Then the cadence can increase as other launch providers get to flight proven status and come on board.

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CISA, FBI warn of threats to US satellite networks after Viasat cyberattack

The U.S. government is warning of “possible threats” to satellite communication networks amid fears that recent attacks on satellite networks in Europe, sparked by the war in Ukraine, could soon spread to the United States.

A joint CISA-FBI advisory published this week urges satellite communication (SATCOM) network providers and critical infrastructure organizations that rely on satellite networks to bolster their cybersecurity defenses due to an increased likelihood of cyberattack, warning that a successful intrusion could create risk in their customer environments.

While the advisory did not name specific sectors under threat, the use of satellite communications is widespread across the United States. It’s estimated that about eight million Americans rely on SATCOM networks for internet access. Ruben Santamarta, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in analyzing satellite communications systems, told TechCrunch that networks are used in a wide number of industries, including aviation, government, the media, and the military, as well as gas facilities and electricity service stations that are located in remote places.

The military, in particular, should be concerned, according to Santamarta, who says that the recent cyberattack that hit SATCOM provider Viasat, which knocked tens of thousands of customers in Europe offline in February, shows the damage that can be done.

“The military in Ukraine was using this kind of satellite terminal,” Santamarta tells TechCrunch. “It has been acknowledged by one of the representatives of the Ukrainian army that it was a huge loss for them in terms of  communications, so obviously that’s one of the most significant sectors that are affected right now.”

Santamarta said for the maritime industry, for example, a successful attack could become a safety threat rather than solely a cybersecurity issue. “Vessels use satellite communications for safety operations, so if they have to send a distress call, this can be sent over a radio frequency or a SATCOM channel. If you can’t send that kind of distress call, that’s a problem,” he said.

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The joint U.S. advisory comes days after Western intelligence agencies reportedly launched an investigation into the cyberattack that hit Viasat’s KA-SAT network last month, causing a massive communications outage across Europe at the outset of Russia’s invasion.

The outage, which has not yet been fully resolved, affected satellite internet services for tens of thousands of customers in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, and disconnected roughly 5,800 wind turbines in Germany.

The cyberattack was originally believed to be the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, but this has since been thrown into doubt. Viasat hasn’t yet provided technical details but has confirmed that attackers leveraged a misconfiguration in the management section of the satellite network for remote access to modems. According to Santamarta, this suggests that the attackers likely deployed a malicious firmware update to the terminals.

“The attackers likely managed to compromise or spoof a ground station… to issue a command by abusing a legitimate control protocol… that deployed a malicious firmware update to the terminals,” Santamarta said in his analysis of the attack.

Given that Viasat provides its satellite communication service to the Ukrainian military, it’s believed the cyberattack may have been an attempt to disrupt communications across Ukraine during the early stages of Russia’s invasion.

“We currently believe this was a deliberate, isolated and external cyber event,” said Viasat spokesperson Chris Phillips. “Viasat’s continuous and ongoing mitigation efforts have stabilized the KA-SAT network.” Phillips rebuffed claims made by Michael Friedling, commander of the French Space Command, who said in a tweet that Viasat customer terminals had been rendered “permanently unusable” as a result of the incident.

“Viasat is actively working with distributors to restore service for those fixed broadband users in Europe impacted by this event, with a priority focus on critical infrastructure and humanitarian assistance,” added Phillips. “We continue to make significant progress and multiple resolution efforts have been completed while others are underway.”

The government’s advisory said U.S. organizations should “significantly lower their threshold for reporting and sharing indications of malicious cyber activity” due to the heightened risk of similar attacks targeting SATCOM networks.

Ukrainians turn to encrypted messengers, offline maps and Twitter amid Russian invasion

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Lynk demos global satellite connection for ordinary phones and prepares for commercial launch

The days of “no signal” may be behind us with the advent of Lynk’s satellite network that lets any modern phone exchange data directly with a satellite overhead, no special antenna or chip required. The company just demonstrated a two-way data link this week and announced its first network partners in Africa and the Bahamas — if everything goes well it may not be long before you can get a signal anywhere in the world.

Formerly known as Ubiquitilink, Lynk has been working up to this stage for years, with former Nanoracks founder Charles Miller at the helm. They emerged from stealth early in 2019 to explain that they had launched several test satellites to show that their theory that an ordinary phone could connect to a satellite in low Earth orbit. Early tests demonstrated they could counteract the noise, doppler shift, and other factors that prompted some experts to call the task impossible, and in 2020 they sent the first ordinary SMS directly from a satellite to a normal phone.

That in itself would have been a remarkable and useful capability to provide to governments and network providers. In emergencies, such as after natural disasters or during blackouts, ordinary mobile networks can’t be relied on to get important messages to affected regions. Lynk showed that a satellite could hit an entire city with an evacuation or shelter in place message, and indeed that may be one way the tech is used in the future.

Ubiquitilink advance means every phone is now a satellite phone

But it wasn’t until last week that the company demonstrated a two-way connection between a phone and a satellite (their fifth, “Shannon”), allowing someone on the surface with no special equipment to, if there’s a Lynk satellite overhead, both receive and send data. Not a lot of data, of course — but more than enough for an SMS, a GPS location, a weather report, or the like. (Higher datarates will come later as more of the constellation goes up.)

“We have repeatedly demonstrated the two-way call flow required for a phone to connect to our cell tower in space,” said Miller in a press release. “This two-way call flow involves multiple instances of uplink and downlink signaling, including a device request for channel access, and then the corresponding authentication and location update procedures. To date, we’ve done this with hundreds of phones, and counting, in the UK, the Bahamas, and the US. This has never been proven before with a satellite cell tower and Lynk has done it.”

To say it’s a game changer is something of an understatement. Once Lynk puts a few more satellites in orbit, it could cover a good deal of the planet in signal — a narrow and intermittent signal, to be sure, but that’s way better than nothing if you break your ankle while hiking in the backcountry or want to assure your family you’re okay after a hurricane knocks out power in your city.

Image Credits: Lynk

“The ability to send a text message, anytime and anywhere is the foundation of all safety. If you can send a message to a friend, family member, or neighbor, that can be life saving,” Miller told me. “You might not even want it, but your wife or husband wants it so they don’t have to worry. People are buying peace of mind.”

The first priority, he said, is to make emergency services available to as many people as possible. A 911 call may not be possible yet, but an SOS message containing basic information and coordinates certainly would be, and this service is something that he wants to make sure is offered at zero or minimal cost, though it’s not entirely up to them. But anything associated with an official emergency service would be free.

Ordinary messaging would work just like you have signal: either you can send live when the satellite is overhead, or you can put it in the outbox or send queue to be sent out when the space-based network bar appears.

The company plans to offer a free demonstration app that can deliver a weather report for your location anywhere in the world, no matter what, and Miller said they’d be happy to work with phone or app makers to integrate it with their OS or service.

Amazingly, access will require almost nothing whatsoever from the consumer. When the satellite is available, it will contact your phone just like any other carrier’s cell towers, since it really is one of those that just happens to be in orbit. Your phone is always aware of the various networks around it other than the one you’re using — there’s a constant interplay in the background as different towers are queried and your signal handed off to one or another, or re-registering on the network for whatever reason. You will have to authorize it one way or another, but there will be an app to help with that, as well as agreements among the networks.

As to that, the company is partnering first with Aliv in the Bahamas and Telecel Centrafrique in the Central African Republic. Miller said they are in talks with networks in dozens of countries, including the US, but these small scale deployments are a first step — and the people there really need it. Rural central Africa and remote islands in the Bahamas may not have much in common, but one thing they do is large areas with spotty signal.

Whatever the carrier decides to charge, Lynk gets a share of that, and Miller said they’re leaving that up to networks to decide: “People will pay a reasonable price per message. If you can charge 5, 10, 20 cents per message at the beginning, we’ll let our partners decide, people will pay for it.” Over time, as the service is more widespread and cheaper for Lynk to provide, the price will (presumably) drop.

Naturally the idea of constant connectivity may clash with the idea many have of privacy. But Miller emphasized that they have no interest in customer data. “You’re our customer, not our product. We’re not interested — it would be very dangerous,” he said. With the significant exception of 911 calls or SOS messages being a tacit request to provide one’s location, he said they’re deliberately building to avoid this kind of conflict.

The company is in talks with dozens of network operators around the world, but regulatory and market questions remain in many places, such as the U.S., where the FCC will need to weigh in. But Miller feels certain they’re on their way to becoming a major part of the global communications infrastructure.

“The smartphone in your pocket is like a superpower, it magnifies your abilities as a human being,” Miller said. “But your superpower is broken when you’re not connected. We solve that problem.”

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Virgin Orbit will launch first Dutch defense satellite in mission that will demo rapid response capabilities

Virgin Orbit isn’t slowing down after joining the exclusive club of small launch companies that have made it to orbit – the company just announced that it’s flying a payload on behalf of customer the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF). This is the first ever satellite being put up by the Dutch Ministry of Defense, and it’s a small satellite that will act as a test platform for a number of different communications experiments.

The satellite is called ‘BRIK-II’ – not because it’s the second of its kind, but rather because it’s named after Brik, the first airplane ever owned and operated by the RNAF. This mission is one of Virgin Orbit’s first commercial operations after its successful test demonstration, and will fly sometime later this year. It’s also being planned as a rideshare mission, with other payloads expected to join – likely from the U.S. Department of Defense, which is working with Virgin Orbit’s dedicated U.S. defense industry subsidiary VOX Space on planning what they’ll be adding to the mission load out.

This upcoming mission is actually a key demonstration of a number of Virgin Orbit’s unique advantages in the launch market. For one, it’ll show how the U.S. DOD and its ally defense agencies can work together in the space domain when launching small communications satellites. Virgin Orbit is also going to use the mission as an opportunity to show off its “late-load integration” capabilities – effectively, how it can add a payload to its LauncherOne rocket just prior to launch.

For this particular flight, there’s no real reason to do a late-load integration, since there’s plenty of lead time, but part of Virgin’s appeal is being able to nimbly add satellites to its rocket just before the carrier jet that flies it to its take-off altitude leaves the runway. Demonstrating that will go a long way to help illustrate how it differentiates its services from others in the launch market including Rocket Lab and SpaceX.

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SpaceX sets new record for most satellites on a single launch with latest Falcon 9 mission

SpaceX has set a new all-time record for the most satellites launched and deployed on a single mission, with its Transporter-1 flight on Sunday. The launch was the first of SpaceX’s dedicated rideshare missions, in which it splits up the payload capacity of its rocket among multiple customers, resulting in a reduced cost for each but still providing SpaceX with a full launch and all the revenue it requires to justify lauding one of its vehicles.

The launch today included 143 satellites, 133 of which were from other companies who booked rides. SpaceX also launched 10 of its own Starlink satellites, adding to the already more than 1,000 already sent to orbit to power SpaceX’s own broadband communication network. During a launch broadcast last week, SpaceX revealed that it has begun serving beta customers in Canada and is expanding to the UK with its private pre-launch test of that service.

Customers on today’s launch included Planet Labs, which sent up 48 SuperDove Earth imaging satellites; Swarm, which sent up 36 of its own tiny IoT communications satellites, and Kepler, which added to its constellation with eight more of its own communication spacecraft. The rideshare model that SpaceX now has in place should help smaller new space companies and startups like these build out their operational on-orbit constellations faster, complementing other small payload launchers like Rocket Lab, and new entrant Virgin Orbit, to name a few.

This SpaceX launch was also the first to deliver Starlink satellites to a polar orbit, which is a key part of the company’s continued expansion of its broadband service. The mission also included a successful landing and recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster, the fifth for this particular booster, and a dual recovery of the fairing halves used to protect the cargo during launch, which were fished out of the Atlantic ocean using its recovery vessels and will be refurbished and reused.

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Watch SpaceX’s first dedicated rideshare rocket launch live, carrying a record-breaking payload of satellites

 

SpaceX is set to launch the very first of its dedicated rideshare missions – an offering it introduced in 2019 that allows small satellite operators to book a portion of a payload on a Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX’s rocket has a relatively high payload capacity compared to the size of many of the small satellites produced today, so a rideshare mission like this offers smaller companies and startups a chance to get their spacecraft in orbit without breaking the bank. Today’s attempt is scheduled for 10 AM EST (7 AM PST) after a first try yesterday was cancelled due to weather. So far, weather looks much better for today.

The cargo capsule atop the Falcon 9 flying today holds a total of 133 satellites according to SpaceX, which is a new record for the highest number of satellites being launched on a single rocket – beating out a payload of 104 spacecraft delivered by Indian Space Research Organization’s PSLV-C37 launch back in February 2017. It’ll be a key demonstration not only of SpaceX’s rideshare capabilities, but also of the complex coordination involved in a launch that includes deployment of multiple payloads into different target orbits in relatively quick succession.

SpaceX will now offer dedicated ‘rideshare’ launches for small satellites

This launch will be closely watched in particular for its handling of orbital traffic management, since it definitely heralds what the future of private space launches could look like in terms of volume of activity. Some of the satellites flying on this mission are not much larger than an iPad, so industry experts will be paying close attention to how they’re deployed and tracked to avoid any potential conflicts.

Some of the payloads being launched today include significant volumes of startup spacecraft, including 36 of Swarm’s tiny IoT network satellites, and eight of Kepler’s GEN-1 communications satellites. There are also 10 of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites on board, and 48 of Planet Labs’ Earth-imaging spacecraft.

The launch stream above should begin around 15 minutes prior to the mission start, which is set for 10 AM EST (7 AM PST) today.

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Watch SpaceX launch its first dedicated rideshare mission live, carrying a record-breaking number of satellites

[UPDATE: Today’s attempt was scrubbed due to weather conditions. Another launch window is available tomorrow at 10 AM ET]

SpaceX is set to launch the very first of its dedicated rideshare missions – an offering it introduced in 2019 that allows small satellite operators to book a portion of a payload on a Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX’s rocket has a relatively high payload capacity compared to the size of many of the small satellites produced today, so a rideshare mission like this offers smaller companies and startups a chance to get their spacecraft in orbit without breaking the bank.

The cargo capsule atop the Falcon 9 flying today holds a total of 133 satellites according to SpaceX, which is a new record for the highest number of satellites being launched on a single rocket – beating out a payload of 104 spacecraft delivered by Indian Space Research Organization’s PSLV-C37 launch back in February 2017. It’ll be a key demonstration not only of SpaceX’s rideshare capabilities, but also of the complex coordination involved in a launch that includes deployment of multiple payloads into different target orbits in relatively quick succession.

SpaceX will now offer dedicated ‘rideshare’ launches for small satellites

This launch will be closely watched in particular for its handling of orbital traffic management, since it definitely heralds what the future of private space launches could look like in terms of volume of activity. Some of the satellites flying on this mission are not much larger than an iPad, so industry experts will be paying close attention to how they’re deployed and tracked to avoid any potential conflicts.

Some of the payloads being launched today include significant volumes of startup spacecraft, including 36 of Swarm’s tiny IoT network satellites, and eight of Kepler’s GEN-1 communications satellites. There are also 10 of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites on board, and 48 of Planet Labs’ Earth-imaging spacecraft.

The launch stream above should begin around 15 minutes prior to the mission start, which is set for 9:40 AM EST (6:40 AM PST) today.

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Deep Science: Dog detectors, Mars mappers and AI-scrambling sweaters

Research papers come out at far too rapid a rate for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers, particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence, and explain why they matter.

This week in Deep Science spans the stars all the way down to human anatomy, with research concerning exoplanets and Mars exploration, as well as understanding the subtlest habits and most hidden parts of the body.

Let’s proceed in order of distance from Earth. First is the confirmation of 50 new exoplanets by researchers at the University of Warwick. It’s important to distinguish this process from discovering exoplanets among the huge volumes of data collected by various satellites. These planets were flagged as candidates but no one has had the chance to say whether the data is conclusive. The team built on previous work that ranked planet candidates from least to most likely, creating a machine learning agent that could make precise statistical assessments and say with conviction, here is a planet.

“A prime example when the additional computational complexity of probabilistic methods pays off significantly,” said the university’s Theo Damoulas. It’s an excellent example of a field where marquee announcements, like the Google-powered discovery of Kepler-90 i, represent only the earliest results rather than a final destination, emphasizing the need for further study.

In our own solar system, we are getting to know our neighbor Mars quite well, though even the Perseverance rover, currently hurtling through the void in the direction of the red planet, is like its predecessors a very resource-limited platform. With a small power budget and years-old radiation-hardened CPUs, there’s only so much in the way of image analysis and other AI-type work it can do locally. But scientists are preparing for when a new generation of more powerful, efficient chips makes it to Mars.

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ULA successfully launches first U.S. Space Force payload

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has completed its 134th successful launch, continuing its perfect track record with a mission today for the U.S. Space Force. This is the first ever dedicated mission for the Space Force, a new branch of the U.S. armed forces dedicated to the defense and protection of America’s strategic assets in space.

The payload today was the sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite that has been deployed for U.S. defense customers, though the original five that are already in orbit which launched over the course of the past decade were obviously sent up before Space Force was officially formed. The purpose of all the satellites is the same, however – providing strategic, reliable and secure communications for U.S. armed forces on Earth across land, sea and air.

While the launch did end up going smoothly on Thursday, it ran into an issue during the countdown to its original planned liftoff time that caused the countdown to be reset. That was due to a fault with a part of the launch system called the ‘ground hydraulics accumulator,’ according to ULA CEO Tory Bruno on Twitter. Since ULA’s launch window today extended to 4:57 PM EDT, the company was able to resolve the issue and reset for take-off, which took place without any problems at TK TK.

The actual satellite deployment will occur roughly five hours after liftoff, and ULA won’t be airing that since they typically don’t with any national defense-related missions. That’s still a critical component for overall mission success, beyond the successful launch itself, so we’ll update you when that is confirmed to have gone as planned.

ULA also addressed how and why it was able to get this launch off as planned despite the global COVID-19 crisis. The company clarified that its missions are considered “critical to security and national defense,” and that it is following all applicable guidance from the CDC, as well as from state and local health agencies, about keeping its facilities and personnel safe, secure and healthy in light of the coronavirus pandemic. ULA’s work is officially designated “part of the nation’s essential, critical infrastructure,” which means that it’s not subject to the same restrictions as other private businesses.

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Watch ULA’s first dedicated rocket launch for the U.S. Space Force live

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has a mission today, launching a specialized secure communications satellite for the U.S. Space Force. That’s the new space-focused arm of the U.S. military that was officially formed last year, in response to what the administration has characterized as a growing need to ensure America’s assets in space are properly defended.

The launch today is set to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with a lift-off time set for 2:57 PM EDT (11:57 AM PDT). The rocket carrying the satellite is an Atlas V, and the mission looks good to proceed as of Thursday morning in terms of both weather and systems checks.

This is the sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite being launched for the military, but the previous five have all been deployed under the U.S. Air Force because the Space Force only came into existence officially last year. The first five satellites were launched between 2010 and 2019, and together, all six will form a constellation that provides secure communications capabilities for military operations across air, land and sea.

This will be the 83rd launch of an Atlas V rocket, and the 11th in this particular configuration. The ULA, a joint venture formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, currently has a 100 percent mission success rate, with a total of 133 launches under its belt.