SpaceX’s Elon Musk has unveiled a US$10bn+ plan for a global satellite broadband constellation that would compete with Greg Wyler’s reinvigorated OneWeb venture.
The billionaire officially announced the move on Friday in Seattle, where he hopes to…
SpaceX’s Elon Musk has unveiled a US$10bn+ plan for a global satellite broadband constellation that would compete with Greg Wyler’s reinvigorated OneWeb venture.
The billionaire officially announced the move on Friday in Seattle, where he hopes to build a satellite engineering office that would grow to 1,000 employees within 3-4 years.
“We’re going to try and do for satellites what we’ve done for rockets,” Musk told Bloomberg journalists ahead of the announcement.
At the heart of the plan is the ability to launch smaller spacecraft more frequently, enabling it to take more chances with advanced electronics that are out of reach of rivals tied to space-proven technology.
According to Musk, by mitigating risk this way the group could orbit technology that may not even be in the hands of consumers, versus “primitive” geostationary satellites whose systems can be a quarter of a century old by the end of their 15 years in space.
SpaceX has been testing a reusable version of its flagship Falcon 9 rocket that could significantly lower launch costs, potentially paving the way for plans to place around 4,000 spacecraft.
Its last attempt to reuse a spent launch vehicle failed on 10 January, when a lack of hydraulic fuel saw it slam into a floating barge that it was supposed to land softly on. Musk is hopeful of solving this issue in his next attempt towards the end of January
His satellite plan follows months of speculation surrounding meetings with Wyler, who for years has been looking to launch a constellation of microsats to provide universal broadband.
They were said to have discussed building large constellations to target orbits that were much lower than traditional GEO-based systems, enabling them to deploy low-latency, high-speed internet services globally.
However, Musk has been cited saying that the two differed over the scale of the project, with the SpaceX founder looking for a more sophisticated system that could ultimately meet the demands of a colony he wants to set up on Mars.
Musk will be looking to leverage on the manufacturing expertise that SpaceX has already successfully used to shake up the international launch industry. But for the moment he does not appear to have the spectrum rights that OneWeb holds for such a system.
Last week, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and US chipmaker Qualcomm announced undisclosed investments to get OneWeb’s multibillion dollar plans off the ground.
Sir Richard, whose Virgin Galactic space tourism start-up has been contracted to launch the spacecraft, was cited saying that SpaceX’s lack of spectrum rights will likely lead to a tie-up between the two ventures.
*Update 20 January 2015*
Google and Fidelity buy SpaceX stake
SpaceX has raised US$1bn in a financing round with new investors Google and asset manager Fidelity, which now collectively own just under 10% of the rocket maker.
“This funding will be used to support continued innovation in the areas of space transport, reusability, and satellite manufacturing,” said SpaceX in a brief statement.
The two companies join existing investors Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners and Capricorn.
It comes as Google’s own plans to deploy universal internet appear to unravel alongside increasing pressure from its new competitors.
The search engine giant bought Earth observation operator Skybox Imaging in June 2014 for US$500m as part of those plans, and was understood to have been backing an earlier iteration of Wyler’s OneWeb venture called WorldVu.
However, reports later that year told how Wyler had left the group over concerns about its lack of manufacturing expertise, taking his spectrum rights with him.
Google has sought to bring the internet to unserved populations for many years. It has also been experimenting with a balloon-based system and, not long before the Skybox deal, snapped up British drone-maker Titan Aerospace to add expertise in this area.
Notably, it is also a shareholder in satellite broadband provider O3b Networks, which was founded by Wyler and has been announcing a series of customer contracts since launching its last four first-generation satellites in December.
