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NASA pays out millions for future space communications

Six satellite ventures — including SpaceX’s Starlink network and Amazon’s Project Kuiper — are due to receive a total of $278.5 million in NASA funding to demonstrate next-generation space communication services in Earth orbit.

The Communications Services Project is intended to smooth the transition from NASA’s constellation of dedicated communication satellites, known as Tracking and Data Relay Satellites or TDRS, to a commercially operated network that draws upon multiple providers.

NASA has turned to similar public-private models for space services including cargo resupply and crew transportation to the International Space Station, as well as the future delivery of scientific experiments and astronauts to the lunar surface.

“By using funded Space Act Agreements, we’re able to stimulate industry to demonstrate end-to-end capability leading to operational service,” Eli Naffah, project manager for the Communications Services Project at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said today in a news release. “The flight demonstrations are risk reduction activities that will develop multiple capabilities and will provide operational concepts, performance validation and acquisition models needed to plan the future acquisition of commercial services for each class of NASA missions.”

SpaceX’s satellites are manufactured at the company’s facilities in Redmond, Wash., not far from the complex where Amazon’s Project Kuiper is developing its broadband satellites.

In addition to SpaceX and Project Kuiper, the contractors include U.S.-based ventures representing Inmarsat, SES, Telesat and Viasat. Each venture will be required to complete technology development and in-space demonstrations by 2025 to prove that its system can deliver robust, reliable and cost-effective services — including the ability for new high-rate and high-capacity two-way links.

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RBC Signals and Inmarsat boost the Internet of Things

Redmond-based RBC Signals has made a strategic agreement with one of the world’s biggest satellite operators, Inmarsat, to put more networking firepower into its range of Internet of Things applications for enterprise customers.

The agreement, announced today in conjunction with the World Satellite Business Week conference in Paris, pairs Inmarsat’s worldwide ELERA and Global Xpress satellite networks with RBC Signals’ ground-based infrastructure for applications that include oil and gas, maritime traffic management, agriculture and utilities.

RBC Signals will be able to scale its use of Inmarsat’s connectivity dynamically to match shifting needs for spectrum, power levels and geographical reach. Internet of Things applications, and particularly industrial IoT applications, are a “significant growth area for RBC Signals,” company founder and CEO Christopher Richins said in a news release.

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SpaceX rocket launches Inmarsat satellite

SpaceX launch
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rises from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending an Inmarsat satellite into space. (SpaceX via YouTube)

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket today launched the Inmarsat-5 F4 telecommunications satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit ranging beyond 22,000 miles in height – so high that there was no chance to bring the first-stage booster back for a landing.

The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at the beginning of the launch window, at 7:21 p.m. ET (4:21 p.m. PT).

Over the past year, SpaceX has made Falcon 9 booster landings seem almost routine. But missions aimed at putting satellites in geostationary orbits typically require so much oomph that there’s not enough fuel for a controlled descent.

Instead, the first stage tumbled back down to crash harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX didn’t even bother to install landing legs on the rocket.

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