Airbus, OneWeb aim to kick off new satellite era with first launch

Telesat

27/02/2019 06:00

By Eric M. Johnson and Tim Hepher
    SEATTLE/PARIS, Feb 27 (Reuters) - A rocket carrying six
satellites built by Airbus SE  AIR.PA  and partner OneWeb was
due to blast off from French Guiana on Wednesday, the first step
in a plan to give millions of people in remote and rural areas
access to high-speed internet beamed down from space.
    A successful launch could mark a new era in the satellite
services industry, with companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX,
LeoSat Enterprises, and Canada's Telesat enabling data networks
with hundreds or even thousands of tiny satellites that orbit
closer to Earth than traditional communications satellites - a
radical shift made possible by leaps in laser technology and
computer chips.
    The launch may presage a boom in demand for launch services,
with a handful of venture-backed rocket companies developing
smaller boosters to deploy the smaller satellites at lower cost.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N1ZF1IJ 
    "We are looking in the next five years at potentially 10,000
satellites needing to be launched and we don't have the launch
capacity at this moment to do that," aerospace consultancy Teal
Group analyst Marco Caceres said.  
    The Russia-built Soyuz rocket was set for liftoff from
Kourou, French Guiana, at 6:37 p.m. (2137 GMT), carrying
satellites made by the Airbus-OneWeb joint venture called OneWeb
Satellites in Toulouse, France. 
    OneWeb and others aim to expand the availability and speed
of satellite-based internet compared to existing providers such
as Hughes Network Systems, whose network is in a higher-altitude
geostationary orbit. Hughes is also an investor in OneWeb and
helping to build out its ground infrastructure. 
    OneWeb has raised more than $2 billion from investors
including Airbus, Coca-Cola  KO.N , Virgin Group, Qualcomm Inc
 QCOM.O  and SoftBank. It aims to have global broadband coverage
in 2021 from about 650 satellites. 
    OneWeb plans to begin launching more than 30 satellites at a
time every month starting as early as September so its
constellation is nearly 25 percent complete by year-end, a
person with direct knowledge of the project said.
    Other firms say they are not far behind. Telesat, backed by
Loral Space & Communications Inc  LORL.O , is targeting 2022 for
broadband services from nearly 300 satellites. 
    Washington, D.C.-based LeoSat Enterprises says it has
already signed more than $1 billion in pre-launch provisional
agreements for secure data transfers for global banks, telecoms
providers and governments beginning in 2022.     
    
    FAST ASSEMBLY REQUIRED 
    Reuters reported a major shake-up last year at SpaceX's
Starlink project, which Chief Executive Elon Musk has said is
critical as a funding source for his broader space
transportation ambitions but faces challenges on development and
testing.
    A person with direct knowledge of the program said SpaceX
was driving toward a first "production launch" with money-making
satellites in mid-2019.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1XC1AK 
    A SpaceX official said its initial batch of satellites were
currently being manufactured, and its internal launch targets
were on track, but the company has not announced a launch date. 
       
    The OneWeb project has forced Airbus to rethink the way it
builds satellites, overhauling a painstaking, bespoke effort to
introduce industrial methods and speed using assembly lines and
automation.
    The two companies plan to open what they say is the world's
first satellite mass-production factory at Florida's Kennedy
Space Center in March for $85 million. Production will ramp up
to 15 satellites per week at a cost of $1 million per satellite,
executives say.
    OneWeb Satellites Chief Executive Officer Tony Gingiss told
Reuters the goal is to be making two to three satellites a day
by early summer. 
    "That's revolutionary in an industry where it costs $50
million to build one satellite and normally takes months and a
team of engineers to do," Gingiss said.
    OneWeb has ground stations in Canada, Italy and Norway that
allow the satellites to communicate with Earth, and has signed a
partnership with Qualcomm to develop the technology that links
the internet from space to different users, such as airlines. 

 (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle
Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Greg
Mitchell and Sonya Hepinstall)
 ((Eric.m.johnson@thomsonreuters.com; +1 206 707 1218; Follow me
on Twitter @ByEricMJohnson; Reuters Messaging:
Eric.M.Johnson.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))