In light of what is going on in US with FCC's approval of Ligado what UK just did makes me smile.
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International:
?ÿ'We've Bought the Wrong Satellites': UK Tech Gamble Baffles Experts
By: Alex Hern
The Guardian
26 June 2020
?ÿThe UK government??s plan to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in a satellite broadband company has been described as ??nonsensical? by experts, who say the company doesn??t even make the right type of satellite the country needs after Brexit.
?ÿThe investment in OneWeb, first reported on Thursday night, is intended to mitigate the UK??s loss of access to the EU??s Galileo satellite navigation system.
?ÿBut OneWeb ?? in which the UK will own a 20% stake following the investment ?? currently operates a completely different type of satellite network from that typically used to run such navigation systems.
?ÿ??The fundamental starting point is, yes, we??ve bought the wrong satellites,? said Dr Bleddyn Bowen, a space policy expert at the University of Leicester. ??OneWeb is working on basically the same idea as Elon Musk??s Starlink: a mega-constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, which are used to connect people on the ground to the internet.
?ÿ??What??s happened is that the very talented lobbyists at OneWeb have convinced the government that we can completely redesign some of the satellites to piggyback a navigation payload on it. It??s bolting an unproven technology on to a mega-constellation that??s designed to do something else. It??s a tech and business gamble.?
?ÿGiles Thorne, a research analyst at Jeffries, agreed. ??This situation is nonsensical to me,? he said. ??This situation looks like nationalism trumping solid industrial policy.?
?ÿEvery major positioning system currently in use ?? America??s GPS, Russia??s Glonass, China??s BeiDou, and Galileo, the EU project that the UK helped design before losing access to due to Brexit ?? is in a medium Earth orbit, Thorne said, approximately 20,000km from Earth. OneWeb??s satellites, 74 of which have already been launched, are in a low Earth orbit, just 1,200km up.
?ÿBowen said: ??If you want to replace GPS for military-grade systems, where you need encrypted, secure signals that are precise to centimetres, I??m not sure you can do that on satellites as small as OneWeb??s.?
?ÿRather than being selected for the quality of the offering, Thorne suggested the investment was made to suit ??a nationalist agenda?. OneWeb is nominally a UK business, with a UK HQ and spectrum rights registered in the UK through Ofcom.
?ÿ??Let??s give the government the benefit of the doubt: if the output the government wants is a UK-branded positioning system, a projection of UK power around the world and supporting the UK satellite industry base, then it is probably quicker and cheaper to smash the square peg of OneWeb into the round hole of a Galileo replacement than it is to do it from scratch,? said Thorne.
?ÿOn Friday evening a government spokesperson said: ??We have made clear our ambitions for space and are developing a new national space strategy to bring long-term strategic and commercial benefits to the UK. We are in regular discussions with the space industry as part of this work.?
?ÿOneWeb filed for bankruptcy in March in the US, where most of its operations are located, after failing to secure new funding.
?ÿPreviously, the UK aimed to build its own global navigation satellite system, which independent experts estimated would?ÿcost ?3bn-?4bn.
?ÿIn December 2018, Theresa May, the then prime minister, said the UK expected to work with the US and other ??Five Eyes? partners ?? a term for the multilateral intelligence agreement ?? to do so. But in May this year that project was put on hold, just weeks before a feasibility study into the scheme was due to be published, as its estimated cost ballooned to ?5bn.
I love it. FUBAR.?ÿ
Totally shocked that the experts know more about their field of expertise than the lobbyists do.
Shocked, I tell you.
Is the EU going to reimburse Great Britain for it's investment in Galileo? If not how can they shut them out from receiving signals. On the other hand Great Britain could prevent Galileo satellites from broadcasting any signals while over Great Britain Territory which would really tick of Ireland.
Seeing where Australia is located Great Britain should cooperate with Japan and pop a satellite or two in their North Pole orbit. And then there is Canada, Bermuda, etc. whom we seem to get along with pretty well. GB can buy a signal on any one of at least a half dozen geostationary satellites and add a WAAS signal to replace EGNOS.
Any day now I would expect the EU to move the Prime Meridian back to Paris.
Paul in PA
Such a fine line between Nationalism and Isolationism, especially when lobbyist, as in this example, are the ones pushing the case. I would venture to say that EU is not cutting Britain off, but Britain believes they should not rely on technology that they no longer have a say in. Why not build your own? It will only cost billions, create lots of jobs and force everyone to upgrade their equipment, which in turn will benefit those companies who the lobbyist represent.
Here is are some articles on the face off..
https://spacenews.com/uk-ends-galileo-talks-says-it-will-explore-a-homegrown-alternative/
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I'm surprised that they're quoting the cost at only $5B.?ÿ The initial GPS constellation cost $12B, plus $750M annual operational cost. I guess if they only want to cover their island...
@jim-frame It's hard to tell- Japan's QZSS (4 operating satellites, with 7 total planned) cost ~$1.21B according to Wikipedia.
EDIT: It's an apples/oranges situation when comparing QZSS to other satellite constellations, given that QZSS was designed to augment the existing GPS system.
Unless that was a term of the negotiation--why would they? Great Britain decided to leave. That has benefits and consequences. Lack of a say in the EU constellation system (unless negotiated in the terms of Brexit), is one of the consequences.
Should the European companies that moved to Great Britain expect compensation for now having to move back to the EU to maintain their EU-focused businesses? No. That's part of the business. The same goes for Great Britain.
Scotland seems to have the "go ahead" for their own Spaceport. If GB wants control of their own constellation, now's the time to start investing in their own. They will either need to create the entire industry or rely on external partners (ie. the US SpaceX or the EU Ariane for launch vehicles).
Divorces are never pretty and only lawyers like them.
If they rideshare on a SpaceX launch, their cost to orbit would be considerably less than when the initial constellation went up. If they design their satellites w/ shorter life spans (ie. cheaper parts), they could significantly cut down on costs. It all depends on if/how they design their satellites for their constellation.
Note that this plan of attack heavily relies on a company based on foreign soil. While SpaceX is a private company, I imagine somebody on the Hill will object to an American company helping a foreign country increase the capability of its military (even if the US-GB one is a "special one" as the politicians are quick to point out whenever they meet up).
