Starlink

Amazon had everything ready to attack the Starlink monopoly. Until Blue Origin exploded into pieces

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On April 20, 2023, the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship took place. Less than four minutes later, the space vehicle explodedbut that was not what was amazing. The amazing thing was that all the company staff celebrated that explosion applauding wildlyas if it had been an extraordinary success. And the truth is that it was, because this launch was part of the company’s incremental philosophy: it doesn’t matter if the rockets explode, because (for the moment) that is what they have to do. When the Blue Origin rocket exploded last weekthere was very little to celebrate. And that is a big difference between both companies. This was not an explosion “by design”. There is a critical difference between the Starship prototype explosions and that of the New Glenn: intent. While SpaceX uses its tests to push its rockets to the limit and learn from those often controlled destructions, the New Glenn that exploded a few days ago was theoretically a production vehicle intended to complete operational missions. It’s one thing to lose a rocket with no payload that is designed to learn from mistakes, but quite another to lose one with a payload that real customers depend on. Blue Origin runs out of ramp. The economic impact of this accident goes beyond the cost of the lost vehicle. The fundamental problem is that Blue Origin currently has only one operational launch pad for the New Glenn, the LC-36, and damage to the tower and support systems could paralyze the company’s activity for months. In a recent update the company indicates who is already working on that ramp “And we have a good reconstruction plan in place.” Bad news for Kuiper. This explosion has also left in the air the deployment of the first 49 satellites of Amazon’s Juiper network, which depended on this launch. The company needs to put thousands of satellites into orbit to compete with Starlink, and every month of delay in the New Glenn is a month of advantage for Elon Musk. NASA and the lunar calendar. But the New Glenn is also a key piece for the logistics of NASA’s Artemis missions. The explosion may force the space agency to rethink its priorities and even delay missions to the Moon planned for the coming years. NASA is running out of plans B, and is increasingly dependent on a single supplier (SpaceX) when that is precisely what Blue Origin could have mitigated. Reliability pays off over time. We have a good example of SpaceX’s trial and error strategy with the Falcon 9. Today it is one of the most reliable rockets in the world with a success rate of over 99%: to date it has carried out 644 missions, of which 641 have been successful. Failures like that of September 2016 They served to learn and mature, and a decade later the Falcon 9 have become almost “boring” due to their reliability. Blue Origin seems to have wanted to skip stages by coming to market with a product that wanted to be perfect, but reality has shown that it is very difficult to achieve that reliability without stumbling. And this setback has been big. The opportunity cost. It is estimated that the economic losses of the destroyed vehicle they hover 150 million dollars, but the true cost is in the penalties for delays and the loss of confidence of future customers. The technical and reputational debt that Blue Origin faces is notable, and it remains to be seen how a company that needed success more than ever will react. Monopoly by accident. The clearest consequence of this setback is also striking: the winner is SpaceX, which is even more dominant than it was in the space launch market. The explosion of the New Gless is terrible news because it eliminates competition, and without a rival that can guarantee launches, access to space will continue to be a bottleneck controlled by a single company and, of course, by its founder, Elon Musk. The tycoon, yes, published a message in X upon hearing about the explosion saying “I’m sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.” Image | Blue Origin In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

Starlink has been ruining astronomers’ nights for years. Now it turns out that their launches are leaving their mark on the climate

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Much has been said about the great light pollution that generate the Starlink satellites from SpaceX. However, not so much has been said about something that, if we think about it, is much more evident. Air pollution derived from launches. Any space launch, in fact, can generate this type of contamination. However, satellite trains require such a large number of launches that it is not unusual for them to be of particular concern to scientists today. 15,000 satellites and counting. A team of British and American scientists has carried out Recently a study brought this problem to the fore and predicted what the effects could be in the short term. This investigation indicates that there are currently around 15,000 telecommunications satellites in orbit, more than 10,000 of which belong to SpaceX. This represents three times as many satellites as in 2020 and the worst thing is that the number continues to increase. As a consequence, according to the simulations of these researchers, by 2029, these satellites could account for 40% of the atmospheric pollution derived from space activity. Also have calculated that by then this sector will be releasing around 870 tons of soot into the atmosphere annually. It would be more or less the same amount released by all cars in the United Kingdom, so action must be taken as soon as possible. Launch and reentry problems. The two key points at which these trains of satellites will put our planet’s climate on the ropes are launch and re-entry. With the first, a large amount of black carbon. These are fine carbon particles that come from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. Regarding reentry, it mainly releases aluminum oxides. The satellites must be changed every 5 years. Later, when orbital conditions are favorable, this re-entry can occur, the price for which for the planet is also very expensive. The effects. Black carbon is harmful to the Earth’s climate on two levels. On the one hand, the particles that make it up have a great capacity to retain the heat of the Sun. That is why they play a very important role in the global warming of our planet. On the other hand, they can affect cloud formation in two different ways. Sometimes they prevent their formation, causing droughts, and other times they trigger extreme rainfall. Regarding aluminum oxides, can damage the ozone layerwith all the harmful effects that this entails. The place matters. The main problem with the release of these polluting substances is that it occurs in the highest layers of the atmosphere. The contamination at this height, if space activity did not exist, would be residual. However, the launches deposit that black carbon there, which remains for 2 to 3 years, retaining heat and affecting the clouds. That is why black carbon derived from space activity is estimated to have a much greater effect on the climate than that of ships, cars or power plants, for example. What is to come is very dangerous. It is said that Elon Musk wants to launch a million satellites into space. This is possibly an exaggerated figure. But it is clear that SpaceX has enormous objectives set. In fact, already It is even looking for launch platforms outside the United Statesbecause in his native country there is no room for such ambition. To all this we must add that other companies have increasingly ambitious objectives with their own satellite trains. This is, for example, the case of Amazon with Leo. The situation can become very worrying if alternatives are not sought, such as less polluting fuels for launches or more durable satellites that require fewer re-entries. Science will probably take us there at some point; but, in the meantime, the consequences for the planet will become worse and worse. We have time to solve it, but we must act now. Images | Gwendolyn Kurzen In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

They measure 85 meters, have no anchors and are connected to Starlink: the gigantic "Roombas" sailors who want to save AI from the blackout

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The rise of artificial intelligence is devouring the capacity of electrical grids around the world, skyrocketing consumption and carbon emissions. And this is just the beginning. As Garth Sheldon-Coulson, CEO of the startup Panthalassa, warned, in an interview with CBS News: “We are still at the beginning of this lawsuit.” To solve this bottleneck, the heaviest investors in the technology sector are looking to the sea. Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, just led a $140 million injection into Panthalassa. But what exactly is Panthalassa? To understand it, you have to erase the traditional image of an industrial warehouse full of servers. Sheldon-Coulson described it with a rather peculiar metaphor: “It’s like ‘a giant Roomba,’ an autonomous, self-propelled system that sails without anchors across the Pacific.” The anatomy of a marine colossus. Panthalassa will use this newly raised $140 million to complete its pilot plant in Oregon and accelerate the deployment of its new model, the Ocean-3which will be tested in the North Pacific in 2026 with a view to commercialization in 2027, as detailed ESG Today. We are not talking about small buoys. The proportions are colossal. As explained Financial Timesthese solid steel structures measure about 85 meters long. To give us an idea, they are almost as tall as the iconic Big Ben of London or the building Flatiron from New York. In Xataka There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk The engineering behind. Just as described Tom’s Hardwarethe nodes are shaped like a “lollipop”: a huge white sphere floats on the surface, while a long tubular structure submerges vertically under the water. As the waves pass, the structure rises and falls. This relative motion forces seawater up the pressurized tube into the spherical chamber, where it spins a turbine. Being a continuous cycle powered by an ocean that never stops, the system generates electricity 24 hours a day. But this is where the real twist of the project lies. Historically, the big problem with wave energy has been the enormous cost of laying underwater cables to bring electricity to the coast. According to GeekWirePanthalassa solves this in one fell swoop: it doesn’t send power to shore, but uses it directly on board to power the AI ​​chips. Once the information is processed, the results (inference tokens) are sent back to clients on the ground via low-orbit satellite connections, such as SpaceX’s Starlink network. The end of terrestrial bottlenecks. This approach represents a radical paradigm shift in technological infrastructure. “Panthalassa’s idea transforms a power transmission problem into a data transmission problem,” explains to Ars Technica Benjamin Lee, computer engineer and architect at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to inexhaustible energy, the ocean offers another vital advantage: cold. Traditional data centers spend fortunes and consume millions of liters of drinking water just to prevent servers from melting due to heat. On the high seas, the story is different. As detailed BusinessWirethe ocean provides “free supercooling,” solving one of the industry’s biggest engineering challenges and extending the life of chips. Added to this is the growing citizen resistance. As pointed out Tom’s Hardwarelocal communities are increasingly rejecting the construction of these huge land-based industrial warehouses due to noise, land grabbing and energy diversion. On the ocean, there are simply no neighbors to bother or urban planning plans to navigate. Besides, as highlighted Finance TimesBeing a closed water circuit without external engines or emissions, the impact on marine life is minimal, underpinning its ecological appeal. The challenge of taming the ocean. As revolutionary as the idea may sound, transforming the ocean into a global supercomputer has titanic obstacles: The connectivity bottleneck. As he warns Ars Technicarelying on satellites is fine for “inference” (i.e. returning real-time responses to ChatGPT users or similar), but satellites have limited bandwidth and latency. If multiple ocean nodes are required to coordinate to train a heavy AI model, satellite connectivity simply won’t measure up against traditional fiber optic cables. The fury of the sea. Data Center Dynamics emphasizes that these nodes They will have to survive extreme conditions: hurricanes, corrosive saltpeter and perpetual motion for more than a decade without human intervention or maintenance. They are not alone in the idea of ​​​​wetting the servers. According to Ars Technica, Microsoft has already tested submerging data centers in the seabed with its Project Natickand Chinese companies already operate underwater infrastructure near Hainan Island. However, Panthalassa is much bolder: being floating, autonomous nodes without grounded cables, they completely break the umbilical cord with the continental electrical grid. {“videoId”:”x9sjece”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”CHINA is WINNING the TECH WAR because they planned it that way 10 YEARS AGO”, “tag”:”china”, “duration”:”721″} A bet at the height of desperation. Despite investor optimism, transforming the Pacific into the next computing cloud will not be a cake walk. $210 million (the company’s total funding to date) may seem like an outrageous amount to throw servers into the sea, but it needs to be put into perspective. As highlighted Ars Technicathis figure is anecdotal if we consider that large American technology companies plan to spend $765 billion building terrestrial data centers in 2026 alone. Faced with the desperation of the sector – which has been exploring since reopen abandoned nuclear power plants until setting up servers powered by solar panels in space orbit—the option of floating in the ocean seems reasonable. The ultimate goal of Panthalassa, as shared by its CEOis to deploy thousands of these nodes far from the coasts. If they can tame the waves and satellite bottlenecks, they could have found the Holy Grail of AI: “The cheapest energy on the planet, infinite, clean and beyond the reach of Earth’s bureaucracy.” Image | Panthalassa Xataka | Old chips never die: companies that made “boring” chips are riding the dollar (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news They … Read more

Amazon had been building its alternative to Starlink for some time. Now the company behind the iPhone SOS has been bought

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If we think about satellite internet, the first thing that comes to mind is usually Starlink. It is logical: SpaceX has managed to occupy a large part of the conversation in this area. But, while that was happening, what we have seen is that Amazon had been building its own bet on low orbit with Leoa project with which he wants to gain relevance in an increasingly disputed market. Now that plan has taken a much more serious step. The company founded by Jeff Bezos has announced an agreement to acquire globalstarthe company that until now supports several Apple satellite functions on compatible iPhones and on the Apple Watch Ultra 3among them Emergency OSS via satellite. At the same time, both companies have communicated an agreement to continue these services and collaborate on future satellite functions supported by Leo. In other words, not only does it buy a strategic piece of the sector, it also fully enters into an already established relationship with Apple. Here the value of Globalstar goes well beyond its name or its relationship with Apple. What Amazon is buying is a combination of satellite fleet, infrastructure, spectrum and operational knowledge accumulated over years in mobile satellite communications. There is also a particularly relevant point: the acquisition gives it immediate access to radio spectrum rights, a piece that can accelerate its plans to offer services on mobile phones and other devices in the future. Furthermore, this operation does not appear in a vacuum. Leo had been trying to gain traction with his own deployment for some time: he already has more than 200 satellites in orbit, although he is still far behind SpaceX. At the same time, the firm has been teaching the product and clients: A few days ago it presented its aviation antenna and already has agreements with JetBlue and Delta to offer inflight connectivity starting in 2027 and 2028, respectively. There is another detail that helps measure the magnitude of the movement without losing sight of caution. The information published by the Financial Times places the agreement in 11.6 billion dollars and places it among the largest purchases in the company’s history, below Whole Foods but above MGMalthough on paper there are still pending steps before considering it resolved. The announcement itself specifies that closure is planned for 2027, provided regulatory approvals arrive and certain technical commitments linked to Globalstar’s satellite program are met. Viewed as a whole, this step helps to better understand where Leo wants to go in the coming years. We are not just facing a large acquisition, but rather an attempt to gain time, capabilities and position in a race in which Starlink continues to set the benchmark. The operation, if it ends up closing as planned, can change the starting point of the American giant quite a bit. Images | Amazon | Apple | globalstar In Xataka | Samsung faces a very serious problem to surpass TSMC with its 2nm chips: the 60% curse

fry Starlink satellites

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Starlink is much more than a service that provides internet anywhere in the world, as demonstrated in the Ukrainian warit is also a strategic technology. For China, Starlink satellites are a threat to national security and They have been looking for ways to neutralize them with lasers for some time. Now, researchers have developed a weapon that could fry them without problem. Microwave. They tell it in South China Morning Post. Researchers at the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology have developed a generator for a high-power microwave weapon. Its name is TPG1000Cs and it is capable of delivering 20 gigawatts of power, plus it can run for a full minute. It represents a notable leap with respect to other systems that were only capable of operating for a few seconds, in addition to being much more voluminous. Click on the image to open the post in X Starlink in the spotlight. Elon Musk’s satellite network keeps China awake at night, to the point that academic articles proposing solutions to neutralize them They are counted by tens. The reason, as we said, is Starlink’s ability to tip the balance in a conflict, such as a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan. It already happened in the Ukrainian war: Starlink became the communications backbone of the Ukrainian armyallowing them to react quickly even if ground communications had been destroyed. lighter. In addition to offering much greater power, the TPG1000Cs is also much more compact and lighter. It measures 4 meters and weighs 5 tons, which may seem like a lot, but there are other microwave weapons such as Sinus-7 which weighs 10 tons and only works for a maximum of 3 seconds. To achieve this, they have used an aluminum alloy and have also designed the energy storage tubes in a U shape, so that the energy bounces back and forth, offering the same performance in a smaller space. This makes it more manageable when transporting it by land, sea or there is even talk of the possibility of placing it in orbit. invisible attack. The use of such a weapon It presents a series of advantages. What it does is store a large amount of energy and release it in a concentrated and very intense beam. On the one hand, the absence of a projectile prevents an explosion from occurring and generating debris, which in turn could impact other satellites. On the other hand, the fact that it is an invisible attack gives the attacker the option of denying their involvement, something that it has already happened in other cases. Effectiveness. According to researchers’ estimates, a microwave weapon with an output of one gigawatt could disrupt communications from Starlink satellites operating in lower orbits. Starlink has had to reduce the orbit of its satellites to avoid collisionsmaking them more vulnerable to ground attacks with directed energy weapons like this one. If China also places its new weapon in orbit, it would be even more lethal. In Xataka | China increasingly dominates technology on Earth. There is a place where it is still very far from the West: space Images | Starlink, Pexels

A Brazilian has shown that having Internet in mid-flight is possible with Starlink. It has also shown that it is a real danger

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If the Internet does not reach the plane, let the plane reach the Internet. One of the Azul Linhas Aereas travelers must have thought something like this, who along with another hundred passengers began to discount the first minutes of their flight. A flight that began on the ground but has not yet ended. And our protagonist tried to connect to the Internet during takeoff using a Starlink antenna and a battery that far exceeded the maximum allowed capacity. The flight has landed but is not over. And the company is now investigating what happened. On Instagram. It’s where the Azul Linhas Aereas traveler has published his invention with the following text: “Who hasn’t suffered the frustration of getting on a four-hour flight and not having Internet? When you get on the plane and the WiFi doesn’t work… Your problems are over.” The video briefly shows how the passenger places the Starlink antenna on the window and hooks it to the window blind. From it, a cable hooks up to a large battery stored in the pocket of the front seat. Click on the image to go to the original post What is Starlink? Starlink is a internet service through satellite connection designed by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. The system is simple, with thousands of satellites orbiting around the earth, the service seeks to ensure that a small antenna can provide Internet to anyone anywhere in the world, no matter how remote it may be. To do this, the customer mounts the antenna and points it towards the sky. From there a signal arrives that is interpreted by a router included in the pack to, in turn, multiply the signal so that we can connect to the network. Its latency is high compared to fiber optics, so it is not a system to compete with home connections, it is designed to provide Internet to areas without 4G or 5G coverage. And does it work on a plane? Of course, the operation is exactly the same as if we placed the antenna on the ground. In this case, what the airline passenger did was put the antenna in the window pointing outside to improve signal reception. For the rest, it works exactly the same as if we contracted Starlink to have Internet at home. In fact, Starlink service is being offered to airlines. And although it has been the trigger between the latest tantrum between Elon Musk and Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair), the truth is that Starlink will be offered this year on Iberia, British Airways or Vueling flights. And the first tests with United Airlines They were already very satisfactory. Starlink improves what is already known because, although a plane also connects via satellite to offer Internet on its flights, the bandwidths that customers demand and its applications are increasing, which has been reducing the speed of data transfer that each device on board can enjoy. But it’s a danger. However, what this passenger has done is a real danger that is being investigated by the airline. In the Brazilian State Post Office They explain that the Starlink antenna was powered by a 60,000 mAh portable battery. Its 222 Wh capacity is far from the 100 Wh maximum that can be carried on board a plane according to Brazilian aviation regulators. Large power banks can be a danger on board, so Aeronautical authorities limit them in size and number. And it is that batteries can self-combust if a thermal leak occurs, which may be caused by overheating or a blow that results in a short circuit. The problem is already huge if we are on land But it can be much more serious if the plane is fully operational because lithium ion batteries are very difficult to turn off and, in addition, they release gases that are harmful to our health. That is why the size of the battery is limited and if an incident occurs, it is manageable by the crew. Photo | Wikimedia and Fallon Micheal In Xataka | Airlines are beginning to regulate and restrict the use of power banks on airplanes: South Korea leads the way

Germany does not want to depend on Elon Musk for war. So the largest weapons factory in Europe wants a “military Starlink”

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For decades, European security has rested on critical infrastructure controlled from the United States. But with the war back on the continent and space communications becoming a decisive military assetGermany is beginning to assume that it cannot afford depend on Elon Musk nor from Washington for something as basic as talking and fighting in case of conflict. A “military Starlink”. Rheinmetall and OHB are in preliminary talks to present a joint offer to create a satellite communications network in low orbit for the Bundeswehr, a system that in Berlin already is openly described as a “Starlink for the German army”. The initiative aims to capture part of the ambitious German plan for invest 35,000 million euros in military space technology, with the aim of providing a secure, sovereign infrastructure specifically designed for military use, reducing dependence on US services such as Starlink, owned by SpaceX. Technological sovereignty. The background of the project will be one of the great themes of this 2026, and it is both strategic and political, since the war in Ukraine has shown to what extent satellite communications in low orbit can be decisive when terrestrial networks are destroyed or degraded. Although Starlink (and its military version Starshield) became in a key asset for kyiv, many European countries distrust to base critical capabilities on a foreign private provider, which has accelerated plans to build national or European networks under state control. The weight of Germany. With this program, Germany aims to become the third largest investor world in space technology, only behind the United States and China, according to the consulting firm Novaspace. German military authorities have already defined the technical specifications and are preparing the tender, prioritizing coverage of NATO’s eastern flank, where Berlin deploys a permanent brigade of 5,000 soldiers in Lithuania as part of its defensive reinforcement. From armored to space. Traditionally associated with tanks, artillery and ammunitionRheinmetall is rapidly expanding its presence into new domains in the heat of German rearmament. At the end of last year it obtained its first major space contract, up to 2,000 million eurosto develop together with Iceye a constellation of radar satellites capable of operating at night and in bad weatherwhich puts it in a solid position to now aspire to a military communications system in low orbit. HBO and opportunity. For HBOthird largest European satellite manufacturer and navigation system supplier Galileothe project represents a key opportunity to strengthen its military business. The company faces the possible creation of a European space giant as a result of the merger of the divisions from Airbus, Thales and Leonardoan operation that its CEO considers potentially anti-competitive and that could leave OHB at a disadvantage if it does not expand its scale and capabilities. Boiling market. The simple announcement of the talks has OHB price skyrocketedreflecting the extent to which the sector perceives German military space spending as a catalyst for opportunity. That said, the project is still in an early phase, with no official comments from the companies or the Ministry of Defense, and is part of a growing competition for multi-million dollar contracts that will define who controls future critical military communications infrastructure in Europe. Image | Support Forces of Ukraine Command In Xataka | Germany is experiencing a new “industrial miracle” that it already experienced 90 years ago: that of weapons In Xataka | Europe’s largest arms factory faces an unexpected problem: earning an indecent amount of money

Thanks to Starlink, Papua New Guinea was able to access the Internet in its most remote areas. That dream is over

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Thousands of people in Papua New Guinea They have been left without an internet connection following the government’s order to suspend operations of starlink in the country. The decision has come amid a legal blockade that has lasted more than a year, and is affecting businesses, health centers and rural communities that depended on Elon Musk’s satellite service to stay connected. What exactly happened. In mid-December, the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (Nicta) ordered Starlink to cease all operations in Papua New Guinea because the company does not have a license to operate in the country. “Starlink is currently not licensed to operate in Papua New Guinea, and until the legal process is completed, services cannot be permitted,” account Lume Polume, CEO of Nicta, told The Guardian. The company has already completely withdrawn its services from the territory. Why was there so much hooking? Although there are no official figures on how many users Starlink had in the country, telecommunications analysts estimate that its terminals served thousands of people before the closure, including entire towns and districts in remote areas, according to the media. For many rural communities it was the only viable option since mobile networks are unreliable or non-existent, and other satellite services are much more expensive. Starlink offered fast, relatively inexpensive internet in places where connectivity had historically been a chronic problem. The real impact of going offline. The blackout has generated a series of important problems in daily life. Teachers like Simon Jack, who works at a remote secondary school in the Southern Highlands province, have explained to the British media that students need the internet to check their academic results and see where they have been admitted to study this year. “For many of them, Starlink was the only option that worked,” he says. In the health field, health worker Theresa Juni, from East Sepik province, counted that his clinic used Starlink to communicate with doctors in the city and send reports quickly. “Now we have to wait days or travel just to send information. For patients who need urgent care, these delays can be dangerous,” he warns. On the other hand, the medium assures that some farmers and merchants must now travel long distances to cities to access banking services and other transactions that they previously did online. The legal mess behind the blackout. The problem comes from afar. Starlink has been trying to get a license in Papua New Guinea since December 2023, but in March 2024 the Ombudsman Commission blocked its approval citing concerns about service reliability and regulatory compliance, according to inform RNZ. Nicta took the case to court months later seeking to overturn this directive, but the court decision is still pending. Meanwhile, the regulatory authority is “legally prevented” from issuing a license until the court rules. The Pacific is from Starlink. The irony is that Starlink has become a lauded service in other Pacific nations, especially after its deployment in Tonga after the 2022 volcanic eruption destroyed underwater internet cables. There the service was described as “transformational.” However, Papua New Guinea has been left out of this story for now. Just like account According to RNZ, last November, SpaceX’s director of global market access, Rebecca Slick Hunter, said at a conference in Port Moresby that the company was ready to activate services as soon as it received authorization, and that Starlink had already established a local entity in the country. Citizen reaction. About 200 people have signed an online petition asking that Starlink be allowed to operate legally, as confirmed by Nicta. Businessman and former MP John Simon has criticized harshly the situation: “This is really bad for this country. Internet and online services have been very expensive and slow for years, yet we cannot listen to ordinary people on the street and solve this,” he told The Guardian. “The Papua New Guinea government must do something for struggling small businesses. Ordinary people and small businesses depend on the cheapest and fastest option, and right now that is Starlink. This problem must be fixed.” Cover image | starlink In Xataka | Without making a noise, someone has eclipsed Elon Musk among the most influential millionaires in the US: Larry Ellison

China is launching more rockets into space than ever before. And the reason is very simple: not to depend on Starlink

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China has taken the lead in a disputed area: that of space sovereignty. To talk about space is to think directly about the POTbut the photo has changed in recent years. The space race It is no longer just a matter of government agencies, but also of private companies as SpaceXthe Spanish PLD Space either Blue Origin. Europe seeks its space without depending on anyone and countries like China and India are taking steps to expand your borders by looking into space. And, earlier this month, China complete four space missions. It is a clear blow to the United States. Rhythm. 2025 has marked a turning point in China’s aerospace industry. The country has broke his record of launches with more than 80 orbitals throughout the year (it was on 68 launches), adding the one with three Long March rockets taking off less than 19 hours apart. Something like this is within the reach of very few. Specifically, only within the reach of SpaceX in terms of pace. stress test. The litmus test took place at the beginning of December, when the Chinese space agency carried out a stress test on its system. Between the 5th and 9th of this month, China overloaded its entire launch chain. They used four different launch sites to test the extent to which their launch, logistics and telemetry centers could operate in good conditions. With this, the country wanted to check to what extent its different centers can operate almost in parallel, without interference and without hindering each other. This is key for routine launches of mega satellite constellations, but also for rapid responses during a crisis. It is also a trial by fire to see how optimized the process is in which the rockets can spend the shortest time possible at the launch points, without forming bottlenecks. What do they throw?. For this operation, four ports were mobilized: Hainan, Taiyuan, Xichang and Jiuquan. And what they have put in the space is… a little of everything: Mission 1: A Kuaizhou-1A rapid-deploy rocket launched from Jiuquan. In the cargo there were VDES satellites to identify ships and their purpose is dual: to monitor maritime traffic, but also to have an analytical capacity for data on the high seas. Mission 2: a Long March 8A rocket designed for a high rate of launches that started from Hainan. It carried 14 Guowang satellites, the state’s answer to Starlink. This is also the most strategicsince the Long March 8A is designed to compete directly against Starlink’s Falcon 9 in costs and launch rate. Mission 3: another Long March, 6A. It left Taiyuan without a confirmed payload, although it is a rocket that has previously been used to launch more Guowang satellites into orbit. Mission 4: a Long March 4B that took off from Jiuquan and is the most “military” of all. Launched Yaogan-47, a satellite recognition to “census lands and estimate crops.” It is still a remote sensing satellite, and we are in a very complex moment in the Pacific. CAS Space The fear of Starlink. One of China’s goals is to have its own Starlink system. This involves thousands of satellites orbiting and providing service, something that cannot be launched in one go. This intense four-day campaign puts on the table the logistical capacity of the Chinese space agency to be able to launch many launches in a short space of time without jeopardizing their reliability. It is a movement that will allow climb the launch of thousands of Guowang satellites into orbit and, when we talk about “fear” of Starlink, we mean that China wants to occupy the orbital space before it runs out of chairs. It is estimated that Starlink has more than 6,000 satellites circling and another 42,000 planned. China has 25,000 planned between Guowang and G60, but in space the law of “first come, first served” applies. The International Telecommunications Union assigns orbits and frequencies under this principle, so China does not want to fall behind the West. Specifically, against the United States. Sovereignty. In fact, there is an interesting “prick” with Musk’s satellites that has nothing to do with communication. Starlink has already demonstrated its usefulness in the war context (andn the war in Ukraine, for example), but also, in 2021 Tiangong space station had to maneuver twice to avoid satellites starlink. And we already know that Russia, China and the United States are preparing (and according to the United States, more than just preparing) for a war in space. In the end, it is a matter of spatial sovereignty. The United States is the proper name when we think about space, but China has been strengthening its position for decades and more recently has begun to occupy that space. And from the European Union it is alsoe is testing the ground for that spatial sovereignty. The goal of all agencies and governments is the same: not to depend on external technology. And this stress test by China when it comes to launching is a blow to its biggest rival. Image | CAS Space, Galactic Energy In Xataka | After many years trying to copy the Falcon 9, Elon Musk believes there is a company about to achieve it

Hispasat wanted to be the “Spanish Starlink” and connect rural Spain. It has failed miserably

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At the beginning of 2023 the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation launched the UNICO Rural Demand program with a clear objective: connect 1.3 million homes and companies in rural Spain to the internet thanks to Hispasat’s satellite internet services. Two and a half years later the project has proven to be an absolute failure. The question, of course, is why. The promise. Everything seemed fantastic in that project. The idea: offer a 100 Mbps connection at a price of 35 euros per month in those areas where there was no access to networks of at least 50 Mbps. To achieve this, satellite connections from Hispasat were chosen, and the project had a budget of 76.3 million in aid. From objectives to realities. The objective was for the entire population of Spain to have access to 100 Mbps networks in 2025, and this program wanted solve this challenge for rural areas in which there was no access to lines of more than 50 Mbps. According to government estimates, the project would cover up to 1.3 million homes, but after all this time we have known the number of installations: 11,486. It is a spectacular failure. Problems from the beginning. The Government awarded Hispasat —recently purchased by Indra— this contract to provide the wholesale service. 42 companies would be in charge of distribution and installation, but as soon as the project began, there was a big problem. Eurona, which was theoretically going to be the main installer of the service (65% of the registrations would be its own), entered bankruptcy proceedings and sold his assets in Spain Serenae. Telecos did not help. The large operators have not been especially proactive, they say in five daysand they have preferred to promote their fiber or rural 5G solutions even if that meant longer waits for users. The profitability for the operators was very limited, and is estimated at around 75 euros per registration. Telefónica, which should have been the main protagonist of the project, has barely accounted for 10% of the registrations, and curiously small local companies such as Celver, Gesico or Bluetel have doubled that share. Starlink is a lot of Starlink. Added to all this is the offer of the Starlink service, which is technologically very superior and also with a more attractive price. For 29 euros per month it is possible to access speeds of up to 300 Mbps and, above all, latencies of between 25 and 40 ms thanks to its constellation of Low Orbit (LEO) satellites at an altitude of 550 km. Hispasat satellites are geostationary, they orbit at 36,000 km high and this causes latencies much higher than about 600 ms, which means that videoconferences or online games cannot be held reliably in good conditions. And now what. The failure has been so resounding that Hispasat has had to return 22 million euros of the total public aid. Of those 76.3 million that came from European Next Generation funds, 36 million were destined to finance the registration costs (installation, antenna, equipment, etc.). The remaining 40.3 million were theoretically invested in the marketing of a service that registered 128,120 eligibility consultations, of which 75,733 met and only the aforementioned 11,486 were executed. The figures are absolutely terrible. Spain emptied, Spain poorly connected. This fiasco adds to that of other programs such as subsidies UNICO 5G Active Networks who have also had to face very serious obstacles. In March, the call 2024 of said program with aid worth 161.3 million euros to continue extending 5G infrastructure in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. According to the Government of Spainthis project will allow 326,000 people in small towns to have access to these networks. The funds will also be used to expand 5G coverage across 6,800 km of the road network. In Xataka | SpaceX changed the space economy. Now he wants to do the same with the cost of satellites

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