This past Sunday, NASA’s Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. It was an historic occasion, both the 50th anniversary of the last human lunar landing, as well as a milestone marking the beginning of NASA’s return to the Moon. Days before, Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, revealed his 8-person crew to accompany him.
There is no secret that ‘times are hard’. Today is especially hard for early-stage pre-revenue technology ventures. The satellite communications sector has seen LEO constellations come into and out of viability as funding runs out. It should therefore be no surprise that one of their other ‘key enabling technologies’ Flat Panel Antenna (FPA) ventures are.
Consumer IoT has traditionally been one of the strongest growth opportunities for MSS IoT markets, with Iridium in particular seeing record growth through consumer products such as the Garmin InReach, which currently dominates this market. Globalstar likewise has a strong showing with its SPOT range of devices. However, a growing number of announcements in the.
Unlike technically proven (FSS-band) LEO-HTS satcom constellations requiring communication terminals, these new initiatives aim to deliver on the promise of direct satellite-to-regular-handset communications through cellular and MSS spectrum in areas unreachable by existing cell towers. Yet, architectural facets drive a wide set of capabilities ranging from asynchronous emergency texting to continuous voice and broadband data connectivity.
Lynk Global, a Falls Church, Virginia-based startup that aims to connect its satellites to cell phones to provide cellular service in remote areas, signed a deal with BICS, a wholesale provider of cellular voice and data services. Northern Sky Research (NSR) recently predicted that the direct satellite-to-device market has the potential to generate $66.8 billion.