Broadband is to be beamed
to every corner of the earth from space following the biggest rocket campaign
in the history of spaceflight. The network will comprise at least 600
spacecraft in the first instance, but could eventually encompass more than
2,000. The aim is to deliver broadband links from orbit to every corner of the
globe.
In particular, the project
wants every school to have a connection. Building so large a constellation
requires a step-change in the manufacture of satellites - especially for
Airbus. It can take Europe’s biggest space company many months and hundreds of
millions of dollars to build some of today’s specialist platforms. But for the
OneWeb venture, it is all about high volume and low cost.
That means new assembly
line methods akin to those in factories producing cars and planes. The idea is
to turn out three units per shift at well less than a million dollars apiece. The
boss of Airbus, Tom Enders, concedes he initially thought the OneWeb concept to
be fantasy.
"Everything in space
as you know traditionally has been 'gold-plated'; it had to work perfectly,
[and have] the most expensive materials, etc.
"Here, we’ve had to
go other ways, to be really commercial and calculating according to the target
cost because that is very decisive in the whole business case for OneWeb,"
he told BBC News.
Airbus and OneWeb have
inaugurated the first assembly line in Toulouse, France. Two further lines will
be set up in a soon-to-open factory complex in Florida. The most obvious
difference you notice between these new lines and the conventional satellite
cleanroom is the trolley robot, which moves the developing satellites between
the various work stations. But the "revolution" here goes far beyond
automation; it requires a whole chain of suppliers and their components to
scale their work to a different game plan.
The first 10 satellites to
come off the Toulouse assembly line have a deadline to launch in April next
year.
Another batch will follow
into orbit around November. And then the launch cadence will kick on apace. The
establishment of the OneWeb constellation requires the greatest rocket campaign
in the history of spaceflight. More than 20 Soyuz vehicles have been booked to
throw clusters of 32-36 satellites into a web some 1,200km above the Earth.
There should be just under
300 on station by the end of 2020, the start of 2021; more than 600 about a
year or so later; and then over 800 by the middle of the decade.
OneWeb and Airbus are not
the only companies planning a mega-constellation in the sky. SpaceX, Boeing,
ViaSat and others have all sought regulatory approval. But not everyone will
succeed in getting the necessary multi-billion-dollar financing, and Airbus
believes the OneWeb concept has first-mover advantage.
Equity of $1.7bn has
already been raised, and talks are ongoing to secure the loans needed to
complete the roll-out. OneWeb describes itself as a "truly global
company" but it has company registration in the UK's Channel Islands. And,
as such, it must deal with the UK Space Agency as the licensing authority.
"A lot of our
revenues are going to flow through the UK. So, from an economic perspective, it
is going to be very important for the UK," said OneWeb CEO Eric Béranger. "And
when you have people locally, you are also fostering an ecosystem. And I think
the UK being at the forefront of regulatory thinking on constellations will
foster an environment that puts the UK ahead of many countries."
One aspect that the UKSA is
sure to take a keen interest in is debris mitigation.
There is considerable
concern that a proliferation of multi-satellite networks could lead to large
volumes of junk and a cascade of collisions. The fear is that space could
eventually become unusable.
A recent study - sponsored
by the European Space Agency and supported by Airbus itself - found that the
new constellations would need to de-orbit their old, redundant spacecraft
within five years or run the risk of seriously escalating the probability of
objects hitting each other. Brian Holz, who is CEO of the OneWeb/Airbus
manufacturing joint venture, said the ambition of his constellation was to set
new standards in debris mitigation.
"We can bring down
the satellites and re-enter within two years; we've made that commitment,"
he told BBC News. "We've put extra hardware into the system to improve the
reliability of that de-orbit process."
We're also committing to
put a small adapter device on to each spacecraft that will allow those
spacecraft, in the small probability that one of them dies on the way down, to
be grabbed by a small chase vehicle and pulled out of orbit."
Time will tell how
disruptive the new manufacturing approaches adopted in Toulouse will be to the
satellite industry as a whole. Airbus and OneWeb hope also to be making
satellites for other companies on their assembly lines. But not every platform
in the sky will require such volumes and a good number of spacecraft will still
need the bespoke treatment.
"Not everything here
is application to the whole space industry. When we launch to Jupiter, there
are things that will remain gold-plated whether we like it or not.”
Unless of course we start
to manufacture 900 satellites to go to Jupiter but this is not the case today,”
said Nicolas Chamussy, who runs the satellite division of Airbus.
Via BBC
Great news , it has incredible potential to increase opportunity across the gloge . Unfortunately it may spread the Kardashians also.
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