paceX is facing a stiff challenge when it comes to its communication network from Starlink. The challenges start with the dominance of high-speed satellite
internet, also including their Chinese rival from a state-backed rival and another service financed by Amazon.com.
SpaceSail, a Shanghai-based company, signed in November an agreement that gave them the ability to enter Brazil, also announcing that it is in talks with over 30 countries. Yet, only two months later, the work began in Kazakhstan, as the Kazakh embassy from Beijing announced.
Even more so, Brazil is in talks with Bezos’s Project Kuiper internet service and Canada’s Teleset, according to an official from Brazil, who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported Reuters.
It is also worth mentioning that ever since 2020, Starlink has launched multiple satellites into the low-Earth orbit, at an altitude of less than 2,000km. Yet, satellites that operate at such low altitudes transmit data very efficiently.
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As a response, China launched a record 263 LEO satellites last year, according to the data received from last year, as Jonathan MC Dowell, an astrophysicist, reported. SpaceSail did not want to comment further on this matter. However, a newspaper controlled by China’s telecom regulators, wrote last year “capable of transcending national boundaries, penetrating sovereignty and unconditionally covering the whole world ... a strategic capability that our country must master."
Kuiper, Telesat, Starlink, and Brazil’s communications ministry did not however respond to the request for comment. Yet, SpaceSail is not the only company that has the same ambitions as Musk. The company has already announced that it plans to deploy 648 low-Earth orbit satellites this year, as many as 15,000 by 2030. Currently, Starlink has nearly 7000 satellites according to McDowell, the target for this decade being 42,000 operating satellites.
By
Adam Brown
•
February 24, 2025 10:05 AM
