A new wave of national LEO constellations
The vitality of Starlink in Ukraine put wind in the sales of the European Union’s IRIS² constellation, and is stirring talks in Canada of wedding sovereign communications needs to local champion Telesat Lightspeed.
More recently, a wave of smaller nations have proposed constellations of their own. The German military wants a constellation to replace Starlink, and is contemplating a system separate from the EU that would cost up to €10B, led by German companies. South Korea wants to have a 6G network of LEO satellites by 2030. And Taiwan’s space agency is building a sovereign constellation, having ordered payload and user terminal technology from CesiumAstro.
In years past, nations wanting sovereign communications often ordered a single geostationary satellite – Bangabandhu-1 for Bangladesh, Chinggis Sat for Mongolia, TurkmenAlem-52E for Turkmenistan, etc. – a practice that was controversial in its own right for dumping government-funded capacity onto the world market, distorting competition. Today national satellites sound sanguine in the face of full-fledged national constellations.
Combined with national constellations already underway (PWSA, IRIS², Guowang, and Thousand Sails) government-led LEO networks may outnumber commercial versions in the coming years. But government LEO constellations come with several challenges, especially for smaller nations, notably:
Capacity dispersion. LEO networks spread bandwidth across most, if not all of the Earth’s surface. This is a challenge even for global operators, but will be amplified for small countries that only care about connecting their geographies.
Orbital carrying capacity. Studies are underway now to determine how many constellations LEO can support, but for the time being, space safety may require separation distances that push latecomers to higher orbits. Above 600km, debris lasts much longer, radiation is harsher, and the signals needed to close links with the ground require more power. Fewer satellites are needed, but these other factors make them more expensive to build.
Spending burdens. Constellations cost billions of dollars to deploy, and cost burdens can easily reach an order of magnitude above GEO. Replenishment needs make this a recurring cost. Small countries may have to allocate a significant portion of their budgets to wield a LEO broadband constellation.
Quilty’s takeaway: national LEO constellations will be a more difficult trend to hop on than GEO. Because of this, countries need to evaluate if they truly need a LEO network, and if they can pull one off, or if they would be better served through other forms of sovereign communications (small GEOs, anyone?).