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SpaceX has over 10,000 working Starlink Internet satellites in orbit today, and is far ahead of its Western and Chinese competitors, some of whom have not yet begun launching satellites. In my last post, I estimated the number of satellites each constellation would have in orbit at the end of the current Chinese five-year plan in 2030, and said one could think of the three Chinese constellations as divisions of a single enterprise, China, Inc. 

The Western approach of self-contained competitors has clear advantages. It allows rapid deployment, tight control over performance, and independence from other systems. The deployment of Starlink in Ukraine illustrates this point. On February 26, 2022, Ukraine requested Starlink service, and by the end of the day, service was activated, and terminals were en route. By March 19th, there were over 5,000 terminals in the country, and there were 15,000 by June 9th.

That’s the good news, but the bad news is that each provider must build and operate its own full-stack constellation, leading to duplication and a lack of global awareness. The Chinese approach to the Internet in space reflects their practice of making decisions within the context of five-year plans; it is slower but allows for a degree of optimization.

Rather than building multiple competing full-stack systems, Chinese constellations implement a division of labor: Guowang (backbone and sensitive government applications), Qianfan (general Internet service), and Honghu-3 (direct-to-device, Earth observation, IoT, etc.). For example, in providing global airline or maritime connectivity, Qianfan or Honghu-3 would both use Guowang for long-distance traffic. In this emerging architecture, the Internet stack is distributed across constellations. Instead of duplication, there is specialization and coordination.

The architectural difference becomes most visible in routing. In the Western stand-alone systems, routing is internal in each. In the Chinese layered systems, routing may span constellations, enabling system-level coordination and optimization. This does not imply fragmentation of the Internet, but it changes how traffic is managed and controlled.

It also alters our interpretation of my estimates of how many satellites each constellation will have in orbit in 2030. My estimate was that Starlink would have 16,083 satellites in orbit in 2030, far more than Western and Chinese runners-up Amazon LEO with 2,729 and Qianfan with 5,217. However, if we consider the Chinese constellations part of a unified, optimized collective with 11,692 satellites, the gap is smaller.

The creation of the China Satellite Network Group and the subsequent prioritization of the Guowang constellation following its initial announcement and ITU filing in 2020 marked a turning point. Experience gained from Hongyun and Hongyan must have informed this transition, with technology, personnel, and spectrum filings absorbed or redirected. Subsequently, Qianfan and Honghu-3 have emerged in more differentiated roles. The result is not simply the replacement of earlier projects, but a progression from competing proposals to a more coordinated, multi-layered architecture—one that reflects both accumulated experience and the broader organization of China’s space and telecommunications sectors.

One could think of the Chinese constellations as a little like "divisions" of a single enterprise with the Chinese government being the "chairman of the board of directors" which meets every five years.

Chinese five-year plans outline strategic goals and initiatives to guide economic and social development. The first plan (1953-57) began the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, and the 15th plan (2026-30), which was outlined this month, aims to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology, including coordinating the construction of satellite communication, navigation, and remote sensing systems, and accelerating the development of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, few people thought of satellite Internet as strategic, but what began as an emergency request made on Twitter became one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions of the war.

At 4:04 a.m. on February 26, 2022, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, asked Elon Musk to activate SpaceX’s Starlink service over Ukraine. That same day, Musk replied that service was active, and within forty-eight hours, a truckload of terminals arrived. Minutes after their arrival, Ukrainian engineer Oleg Kutkov posted a speed test from Kyiv. Starlink was live. 

At the time, this looked like a dramatic but limited response—an emergency patch to help a government under attack stay online. Over the next three years, it became something much more consequential: a privately owned satellite network evolved into a core layer of wartime infrastructure. Today, there may be as many as 200,000 terminals in Ukraine, making it the biggest Starlink user in Europe.

I have been writing about Starlink in Ukraine since those first days of the invasion, beginning with early observations on connectivity, coverage, and ground-station dependence, and following its rapid expansion into government, military, energy, healthcare, and civilian use. Those earlier pieces are collected here on CircleID (see links below). This post is not another update. It is a synthesis of what the Starlink experience in Ukraine tells us about Internet infrastructure in war and dependency.

From novelty to infrastructure

In the earliest phase, the number of Starlink terminals in Ukraine was small, but their value quickly became clear. A handful of portable terminals in the hands of senior officials, military commanders, communications staff, and journalists could preserve continuity of government if fiber lines were cut, cellular towers destroyed, or local networks surveilled or jammed.

By mid-March 2022, more than 5,000 Starlink terminals were operating in Ukraine. Terminals were used by the armed forces, energy companies, emergency services, hospitals, NGOs, journalists, and local governments. In some towns, a single terminal provided backhaul connectivity for thousands of civilians.

Political and Army leaders used Starlink for military planning and decision-making. Starlink also facilitated propaganda and foreign relations. We saw videos of President Zelensky at the front lines, meeting foreign leaders, and addressing foreign parliaments. We also saw daily evidence of Russian atrocities on Telegram and in the news.

Software-defined warfare

Early Starlink terminals depended upon ground stations in neighboring countries -- Poland, Lithuania, and Turkey. Coverage and availability varied by geography, but performance was consistently good enough for coordination and reporting. Reliability, not elegance, was the wartime requirement.

Then the  Russian forces began jamming Starlink terminals. SpaceX responded not by shipping new hardware, but by pushing software updates. Roaming was enabled, allowing terminals to be used briefly, powered down, moved, and used again. Power consumption was reduced so terminals could operate from vehicle outlets. Jamming countermeasures were deployed over the air. (These changes occur without the delay of traditional military procurement cycles).

This was a glimpse of a new kind of infrastructure contest: electronic warfare meeting software-defined networks. Ukraine has given us a clear example of how modern Internet systems blur the boundary between civilian engineering and military operations, and shown us new skills that are needed.

Starlink and drones -- over land and on sea

Starlink’s military significance became clearest when paired with drones.

Ukrainian reconnaissance units used Starlink to relay imagery and targeting data from surveillance drones to artillery units, shortening sensor-to-shooter loops. Drones equipped with thermal cameras hunted at night. Others documented battlefield damage and war crimes. Starlink did not make this possible on its own—but it made it scalable.

At the same time, drone footage flooded social media and news outlets. Open-source intelligence groups analyzed videos and satellite imagery. Journalists verified claims. Governments responded. The Internet did not merely report the war; it became one of its primary theaters.

Civilian support ecosystems

By 2023, tens of thousands of terminals were in Ukraine, and distribution channels, training, repair, and modification were needed. Ukraine built a distributed ecosystem of engineers, service centers, and informal supply chains capable of repairing damaged terminals, adapting them for mobile and battlefield use, and keeping them operational under harsh conditions. A consumer product had become military infrastructure, often acquired, modified, and maintained by civilians.

This civilian technical mobilization—much of it voluntary—was as important to Starlink’s effectiveness as the satellites themselves. Without it, the system would have degraded quickly under battlefield conditions.

This was possible because the digital transformation in Ukraine began years before the Russian invasion. A Harvard study reports that before the war, Ukraine was arguably the number one country in the world regarding the pace and speed of digital transformation. The mobilization of Ukraine's commercial and technical Internet community should be noted and serve as a warning to other nations that are not as well prepared.

Dependence

By 2024 and 2025, Starlink was no longer an emergency backup but a routine part of military and civilian operations. That dependence carried risks. Ukraine’s experience highlighted the strategic implications of relying on privately owned, globally operated infrastructure whose technical evolution, pricing, and policy decisions ultimately lie outside national control – with Elon Musk in this case.

The lesson is not that Starlink is unreliable or that commercial systems should be avoided. On the contrary, Ukraine’s experience demonstrates the extraordinary value of Starlink. The lesson is that connectivity has become a strategic asset that must be planned with redundancy, diversification, and governance in mind—long before a crisis begins.

Today, OneWeb is Starlink's only operational commercial low-Earth orbit (LEO) competitor, and it is not close to being able to provide the service Starlink does. I hope the war in Ukraine is over before others, such as Amazon, Telesat, and IRIS^2, are ready to offer meaningful competition to Starlink, and I worry that, if Starship proves to be economically viable, the gap will grow significantly. 

Three years on, it is clear that LEO satellite connectivity is strategic, and when strategic infrastructure depends on privately owned networks, domestic competence, governance, redundancy, and accountability become matters of national security—not afterthoughts. 

Earlier posts in this series include:

SpaceXStarlink Service in Ukraine Is an Important Government Asset

SpaceXStarlink in Ukraine—A Week Later

FiveThousand SpaceX Starlink Terminals for Ukraine

TheUnprecedented Role of the Internet in the War in Ukraine

CivilianTech Mobilization in Ukraine

Starlink Is Critical in Support of Ukraine, and It Will Continue

To paraphrase Bill Clinton’s 1990 campaign slogan, “it’s the conversation, stupid”, and Alan Turing would agree.

ChatGPT shareable links are to the end of the conversation, implying that the purpose of the conversation is to find a conclusion, like an answer to a question or a link to a relevant document. That makes sense for a search engine, but with AI chatbots, the conversation itself is of interest. Much of the value lies in the dialogue, the back-and-forth in which assumptions are tested, errors corrected, alternatives explored, and ideas refined, not a final answer. 

I subscribe to the ChatGPT service and find it well worth the monthly fee, but it treats our conversations as ephemeral interface entities rather than durable intellectual work products of interest in their own right. The user interface is misleading. It has a "history" feature, which I assumed meant that it permanently archived conversations, until a reader pointed out that a link to a conversation I had published was broken.

The history feature allows users to view and continue past conversations for an unspecified time, but provides no native way to permanently archive an individual conversation in a standard document format like Word or PDF. There is no per-conversation export, no versioning, and no user-controlled guarantee of long-term retention. The only built-in alternative is an “export all data” function that produces raw HTML and JSON files, requiring additional processing before the material becomes usable.

This is not a minor usability issue. It reflects a deeper assumption: that the conversation is a disposable means to an end, rather than a work product with independent value. That assumption may be reasonable for customer-support chatbots (which I hate), but it is not reasonable when AI systems are used for writing, learning, decision-making, policy formulation, etc. In those contexts, the dialogue itself documents reasoning, uncertainty, correction, and collaboration. Often, it is precisely the conversational path—not just the destination—that one wishes to preserve.

Other software categories recognise this distinction. Word processors save drafts. Version control systems preserve history. Collaborative tools maintain change logs. AI chat services, by contrast, still behave as though conversations are transient means to an end. As a result, users who care about their work are pushed into awkward workarounds: manual copy-and-paste, browser extensions, or, in the case of ChatGPT, "export all data," which mixes valuable conversations with trivial ones. 

The solution does not require new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, just adding a new feature to existing chatbots. (ChatGPT shared links should also offer the option of linking to the beginning or end of the conversation).

AI systems are not mere search engines but tools for thinking and writing, and AI platforms should support per-conversation export in standard formats, user-controlled guarantees of retention or deletion, stable identifiers suitable for citation, and optional versioning to capture the evolution of a dialogue. I'd be happy to pay ChatGPT for storing my conversations or just adding a button that allowed me to save them on Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.

Finally, I asked ChatGPT if any of the well-known US and Chinese AI chatbots had an "archive-conversation" feature, and it said none did.

Alan Turing suggested a test for machine intelligence: a machine was intelligent if a human evaluator could not reliably tell whether the transcript of a conversation was with it or a person. In the early 1970s, I installed two public-access Teletypes with dial-up Internet access in the Venice, California Public Library, and, among other things, I saw users carry on lengthy conversations with Eliza, a simple BASIC program, that fed their statements back to them in the manner of a non-directive therapist. Eliza passed the Turing test with those users as evaluators, and chatbot conversations should be archived.

In the 1960s, IBM dominated the computer market, which was often referred to as “IBM and the seven dwarfs.” IBM is prosperous today, but no longer dominant. The low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite Internet service market today is reminiscent of that time, but it’s "SpaceX Starlink and the seven dwarfs."

As was the case with IBM, Starlink has seven dwarfs, which I have described in two fairly recent posts. Three are Chinese: Guowang, Qianfan, and Honghu-3, and four are from the west -- the US, Canada, and Europe -- Amazon LEO, OneWeb, Telesat, and IRIS². (Russia may emerge as the eighth dwarf).

US and China capital formation (source)

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) is expected to promote low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite Internet as part of its “new-type infrastructure” strategy. A Ministry of Industry and Information Technology directive calls for  “accelerated development of low-orbit satellite Internet,” commercial trials, and global broadband coverage, targeting over 10 million users, including direct-to-mobile handset service, by 2030. The Communist Party recommendations include building “information-communication networks” and “aerospace and low-altitude economies” as strategic sectors. Together, these indicate that LEO satellite internet will be clearly encouraged within China’s 2026–2030 policy framework.

Note that the Landspace pie chart above refers to "State and Local Government Funds." Local governments play an important role in coordinating and financing space and other industries in China, and Landspace has several key facilities within the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor. (This is reminiscent of Silicon Valley.)

Elon Musk and Donald Trump

Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries--indeed of all the world--cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries.

In an earlier post, I updated the status of three Chinese low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite Internet constellations. This one looks at four western competitors: OneWeb, Telesat, Amazon Project Kuiper, and IRIS². While Starlink is far ahead of each of them and only OneWeb is in operation at this time, I expect each of these and the Chinese constellations to survive and eventually compete with Starlink (stay tuned for the next post).

OneWeb

Bill Gates and two partners founded Teledesic, a would-be LEO satellite Internet service provider, in 1990, but the technology was not yet ready, and Teledesic declared bankruptcy in 2002.

The next potential LEO Internet service provider, OneWeb, was founded by Greg Wyler, who had extensive experience with networking in developing nations, with the mission of “bridging the digital divide by 2027.” However, it entered bankruptcy in 2020. The company was reorganized and emerged from bankruptcy, and in 2023, it merged with the established geo-stationary satellite (GEO) operator Eutelsat, creating the "Eutelsat Group" company, with subsidiaries "Eutelsat" and "Eutelsat OneWeb.”

In spite of that rocky start, OneWeb is the only company other than Starlink that is offering LEO satellite Internet service today. OneWeb LEO revenue was 187 million euros ($216 million) for the 12 months ending June 30,2025, representing around 15% of total Eutelsat Group sales. Starlink revenue for 2024 was $2.7 billion. OneWeb’s market share, and more importantly, global capacity, are minuscule compared to those of Starlink.

That sounds grim, but given Elon Musk’s political activity, Trump’s MAGA/isolationist policy, and the military value of LEO Internet, Europe will not let OneWeb fail unless there are viable alternatives to Starlink. This is evidenced by European support of OneWeb in Ukraine, including German funding of OneWeb and a recent British investment.

Finally, note that the Eutelsat Group can offer multi-orbit service, switching seamlessly between Eutelsat GEO and OneWeb LEO satellites or offering OneWeb service to other GEO providers. They signed their first multi-orbit contract three years ago and have added others since.

While this gives them an in-house advantage, SES, which operates a middle-Earth orbit constellation, will partner with any LEO or GEO provider to provide multi-orbit service.

Telesat

Telesat, an established Canadian GEO satellite operator, was the next LEO Internet company. Telesat recognized the trend to LEO, but decided not to offer consumer connectivity. 

Telesat has been beset by delays and has reduced its initially planned constellation size, but they have contracted (with SpaceX) to begin launching satellites next year. Trump’s immigration and tariff policies, along with talk of annexing Canada, assure us that the Canadian government, which, along with Quebec, has invested in Telesat, will not allow it to fail.

Its initial “Lightspeed” constellation will consist of 198 satellites with a mass of 750 kg, roughly that of Starlink V2 mini satellites.  SpaceX is slated to deploy them over the course of a year, starting in mid-2026. Telesat has been booking customers, and their LEO backlog now exceeds their GEO backlog. They plan to provide global service with polar and inclined sub-constellations, are seeking a ground station partner, and have terrestrial deals with Vocus, Orange, and Space Norway.

While Telesat will not bundle its own LEO and GEO services, they have tested a hybrid deployment between LEO and GEO using the Telesat Lightspeed emulator, showing seamless integration without any issues. Software like the emulator is part of their strategic decision to use Aalyria Spacetime, a multi-layer, multi-orbit operating system for a temporospatial network, which they acquired from Google when the Loon project was abandoned.

Amazon Project Kuiper

Project Kuiper, which has launched 153 satellites, is far behind Starlink, which has over 8,000, but Amazon has many things going for it. From the time it was founded, Amazon was an infrastructure company, and Project Kuiper is an orbiting infrastructure that will be strategically paired with Amazon’s complementary terrestrial infrastructure, like fiber and datacenters. Amazon has vast experience in manufacturing and logistics that will stand them in good stead with the manufacturing of terminals as well as satellites. 

Project Kuiper is a wholly-owned subsidiary and an initiative of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos is the founder of both Amazon and the Blue Origin launch company, which will launch some Project Kuiper satellites. Amazon itself will also be a significant Kuiper user, and Kuiper will use Amazon’s ground station service. 

That’s the good news, but Amazon faces an FCC deadline to launch half the constellation by July 30, 2026, and the remainder by July 30, 2029. They say they will be able to receive, test, and pack 100+ Kuiper satellites per month into the appropriate fairing and claim to have secured 80 launches, but how fast can they manufacture them? They will apply for a waiver from the FCC if necessary, and, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos has a lot of money and attended Trump’s inauguration. Earlier, Musk might have stopped an Amazon waiver, but now Trump is looking into deporting him, and  Bezos has made editorial changes at the Washington Post, which he owns. A political contribution might solve the FCC deadline.

IRIS²

IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is a €10.6bn project with 61 percent funded publicly and the balance coming from the SpaceRise industrial consortium, led by Eutelsat, Hispasat, and SES. SpaceRISE will design, deliver, and operate IRIS² for a period of 12 years.

They have contracted for 274 satellites in LEO and 18 in MEO, with first launches anticipated for 2029 and completion in 2030. Eutelsat will act as prime contractor leading the design of the LEO segment and co-leading the development of common system elements. SES will be responsible for procurement, integration, and operation of the MEO satellites, and Hispasat will lead the very-low orbital layer of the constellation and design, deliver, and operate the ground segment, manage operations, and interconnection with terrestrial networks. They also expect to eventually add a GEO sub-constellation.

This is a unique and complex organization that will have to manage suppliers like Airbus, Thales, OHB, Deutsche Telekom, and  Orange. Bureaucracy might be a problem, but Europe can not rely on Starlink as Ukraine has during the war with Russia.

• SES's first multi-orbit partnership was Cruise mPOWERED + Starlink,  providing a managed blend of SES MEO and Starlink LEO service for maritime operators, and we can expect similar bundled services in aviation and enterprise markets. 
• SES and Lynk Global plan to provide direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity through Lynk's "cell towers in space" and SES's MEO backhaul and terrestrial infrastructure. (SES operates the largest fiber network among satellite providers, with global reach through 150 owned and partner teleports and 50 points of presence.) Might SES also offer AST SpaceMobile D2D service?
• SES recently completed its acquisition of GEO operator Intelsat, giving it 120 LEO and MEO satellites, but it also inherited Intelsat's commitment to buy $250 million worth of LEO capacity from OneWeb over six years, giving it access to an operating LEO constellation.
• SES and OndWeb's parent company Eutelsat are both members of the SpaceRISE consortium that is building the Iris^2 multi-orbit network.
• Amazon’s Project Kuiper is ramping up launch campaigns and seeking distribution partners, and SES’s global ground infrastructure and government contracts make selective Kuiper integration plausible, especially for defense and enterprise deals. Project Kuiper expects to offer service in the US and four other countries by the end of March and approximately 26 countries by the end ot next year.
• Telesat's  LEO constellation Lightspeed targets enterprise and government -- markets SES knows well. If Lightspeed reaches orbit at scale, SES could combine its MEO and GEO coverage with Telesat’s polar-friendly LEO. Telesat also offers GEO connectivity, but instead of offering multi-orbit service, they will sell Lightspeed to other GEO providers. For example, they have an agreement to provide LEO service to Viasat.

China has pursued a strategy of competition among government-owned organizations, and it initiated two government-owned constellation projects, Hongyun and Hongyan, in 2018. In April 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission included “satellite internet” on its “new infrastructures” list, and China applied to the ITU for a new constellation, called  GW. Hongyun and Hongyan were dropped, and GW, also called China Satnet or Guowang, emerged as China’s global Internet service provider and it was followed by two others, Qianfan and Honghu-3. These are all far behind Starlink, but they will have protected markets and China is developing new launch vehicles and satellite manufacturing capacity.

Gwowang

China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 called for building an integrated communications, Earth observation, and satellite navigation system with global coverage. Guowang is the constellation they called for.

Guowang consists of two sub-constellations, designated GW-A59 (6,080 satellites) and GW-2 (6,912 satellites). GW-2 will orbit at 1,145 km, and  GW-A59 will orbit around half that. The ITU filing was in September of 2020, and after a long delay, the first ten GW-2 satellites were launched at the end of 2024, and they now have 81 in orbit. The cadence has picked up recently -- China just launched another batch of Guowang satellites. This was the ninth Guowang launch this year and the sixth in the last 30 days. Even at this cadence, it is unclear that they can manufacture and launch enough satellites to meet the ITU launch deadlines. Perhaps the Chinese have decided that, given launch and manufacturing resources, they would not be able to meet ITU deadlines for all of their constellations, so they are focusing on Guowang, which can be seen as most critical for the government.

Little technical information is available, but considering the capacities of the various rockets used to launch Guowang satellites and the number of satellites in each launch, it seems there are two sizes of satellite: large satellites of around 16,600 kg and smaller satellites of around 889 kg. While these are imprecise estimates, they indicate two classes of satellite with different capabilities and functions. (Note that the relatively high altitude GW-2 sub-constellation has both large and small satellites).

Several Guowang test satellites have also been launched, suggesting strategic government and military applications like Signals intelligence, positioning, navigation, and imaging applications in addition to Internet service.

Qianfan

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), a private company backed by the Shanghai municipal government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is developing the Qianfan constellation. The planned satellites will orbit at 1,160 km, which is higher than the other announced LEO satellite competitors except Telesat. While this will increase latency, collision risk, satellite lifespan, handoff frequency, and coverage footprint should improve.

Their plan called for 648 satellites providing regional service by the end of 2025 and global service with a second 648 satellites by the end of 2027. By 2030, they planned to have 15,000 satellites in orbit and offer direct-to-mobile service, but it does not look like they will make these goals.

It's been a year since the first Qianfan launch, but five months since the last on? Blae. Is the slowdown due to satellite or launch availability, or are they pausing for some redesign, or bothine Curcio reports that they are “having a very hard time" finding rockets to send full batches of 18 satellit to orbit, but they have also had operational problems. The upper stage of the first launches fragmented, creating over 300 pieces of trackable debris, and ninety satellites are in orbit, but fourteen have not reached their operational altitude. Furthermore, the satellites are interfering with astronomy, and some are tumbling. Regardless of the cause for delays, Qianfan is unlikely to meet its ITU launch deadlines.

Qianfan is a more direct competitor to Starlink than Guowang, which is primarily focused on domestic telecommunications and national security. SSST has been actively marketing wholesale service through foreign telecom companies under the Sailspace brand name. They had MOUs with several nations in six initial target markets, as shown below, and they have subsequently been actively marketing in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. 

Honghu-3

Landspace Technology Corporation was founded in 2015, following a 2014 central government policy shift that opened the launch and small satellite sectors to private capital. Landscape owns 48% of Hongqing Technology, which is developing the 10,000-satellite Honghu-3 constellation. Honghu-3 satellites will be in six planes, ranging from 340-550 km. 

Landspace has a pending IPO and is developing the Zhuque-3 rocket, which they plan to launch later this year. The Zhuque-3 will carry about 21,000 kg to LEO in an expendable configuration – less than an expendable Falcon 9, but more than a reusable Falcon 9. This connection to a rocket manufacturer is reminiscent of SpaceX's relationship with Starlink and Project Kuiper's with Blue Origin. (Several other Chinese companies are also working on reusable rockets).

Honghu-3 was announced after Guowang and Qianfan, and relatively little is known of their plans and technology, but Landspace has valuable experience as a private company. As you see in this conversation with ChatGPT, Landscape has a complex mix of private, state, and local government investors dating back to its founding, and it estimates the ownership breakdown as roughly 60% private, national government 15-20%, and provincial/municipal around 20%.

Update 9/14/2025

• The tester accessed the Baidu hot search page using a mobile browser, and images and text loaded quickly; video playback was also smooth.
• There was no lag or abnormal playback when streaming 4K high-definition video from the CCTV website.
• The WeChat video communication quality was comparable to that of terrestrial 4G/5G networks. The video remained stable during the test, with no noticeable lag.
• The user experience while playing League of Legends was good, and the network delay was kept at 60 to 70 milliseconds.

The report also lists the technical specifications of both the standard and high-performance terminals, and speed tests for both terminals are shown below.

Update 10/23/2025

Quinfan resumed launches with a batch of 18 satellites after a six-month delay, presumably to correct for the problems of an exploding first stage, tumbling satellites, and interference with astronomy. They have now launched 108 satellites, and 14 have failed and are decaying, 94 are working, and 67 are in their operational orbit. 

As mentioned above, Blaine Curcio noted that they were also “having a very hard time" finding rockets to send full batches of 18 satellites to orbit, but Andrew Jones reports that they have expanded launch procurement beyond state provider CASC, awarding $187 million in contracts to Landspace, Space Pioneer, and CAS Space. Still, there is no way they will meet the original goals of 648 satellites providing regional service by the end of 2025 and global service with a second 648 satellites by the end of 2027.

Update 1/9/2026

After the December 26 launch of nine satellites, there are now 136 Guowang spacecraft in space, functioning in and heading up to their operational orbit. They were launched by a Long March 8A rocket, so they were probably the smaller Guowang satellites. Guowang plans to launch 310 satellites in 2026, 900 in 2027, and 3,600 every year beginning in 2028. 

A Chinese fisherman was able to retrieve the fairing from the launch -- a cool souvenir.

Update 3/7/2026

They have also successfully tested their version of a “Pez dispenser” for satellite stacking and release, so they may be ready for full-scale satellite deployment later this year, serving the Chinese LEO satellite Internet service providers.

OneWeb

Bill Gates and two partners founded Teledesic, a would-be LEO satellite Internet service provider, in 1990, but the technology was not yet ready, and Teledesic declared bankruptcy in 2002.

The next would-be LEO Internet service provider, OneWeb, was founded by Greg Wyler, who had extensive experience with networking in developing nations, with the mission of “bridging the digital divide by 2027”, but it entered bankruptcy in 2020. The company was reorganized and emerged from bankruptcy, and in 2023 merged with established geo-stationary satellite (GEO) operator Eutelsat, creating the "Eutelsat Group" company, with subsidiaries "Eutelsat" and "Eutelsat OneWeb.”

In spite of that rocky start, OneWeb is the only company other than Starlink that is offering LEO satellite Internet service today. OneWeb LEO revenue was 187 million euros ($216 million) for the 12 months ending June 30,2025, representing around 15% of total Eutelsat Group sales. Starlink revenue for 2024 was $2.7 billion. OneWeb’s market share, and more importantly, global capacity, are minuscule compared to those of Starlink.

That sounds grim, but given Elon Musk’s political activity, Trump’s MAGA/isolationist policy, and the military value of LEO Internet, Europe will not let OneWeb fail unless there are viable alternatives to Starlink. This is evidenced by European support of OneWeb in Ukraine, including German funding of OneWeb and a recent British investment.

Finally, note that the Eutelsat Group can offer multi-orbit service, switching seamlessly between Eutelsat GEO and OneWeb LEO satellites or offering OneWeb service to other GEO providers. They signed their first multi-orbit contract three years ago and have added others since.

Telesat

Telesat, an established Canadian GEO satellite operator, was the next LEO Internet company. Telesat recognized the trend to LEO, but decided not to offer consumer connectivity. 

Telesat has been beset by delays and has reduced its initially planned constellation size, but they have contracted (with SpaceX) to begin launching satellites next year. Trump’s immigration and tariff policies, along with talk of annexing Canada, assure us that the Canadian government, which, along with Quebec, has invested in Telesat, will not allow it to fail.

The initial “Lightspeed” constellation will consist of 198 satellites with a mass of 750 kg, roughly that of Starlink V2 mini satellites.  SpaceX is slated to deploy them over the course of a year, starting in mid-2026. Telesat has been booking customers, and their LEO backlog now exceeds their GEO backlog. They plan to provide global service with polar and inclined sub-constellations, are seeking a ground station partner, and have terrestrial deals with Vocus, Orange, and Space Norway.

While Telesat will not bundle its own LEO and GEO services, they have tested a hybrid deployment between LEO and GEO using the Telesat Lightspeed emulator, showing seamless integration without any issues. Software like the emulator is part of their strategic decision to use Aalyria Spacetime, a multi-layer, multi-orbit operating system for a temporospatial network, which they acquired from Google when the Loon project was abandoned.

Amazon Project Kuiper

Project Kuiper, which has only 101 operational satellites in orbit today, is far behind Starlink, which has over 8,000, but Amazon has many things going for it. From the time it was founded, Amazonwas an infrastructure company, and Project Kuiper is an orbiting infrastructure that willbe strategically paired with Amazon’s complementary terrestrial infrastructure, like fiber and datacenters. Amazon hasvast experience in manufacturing and logistics that will stand them in good stead with the manufacturing of terminals as well as satellites. 

Project Kuiper is a wholly-owned subsidiary and an initiative of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos is the founder of both Amazon and the Blue Origin launch company, which will launch some Project Kuiper satellites. Amazon itself will also be a significant Kuiper user, and Kuiper will use Amazon’s ground station service. 

That’s the good news, but Amazon faces an FCC deadline to launch half the constellation by July 30, 2026, and the remainder by July 30, 2029. They say they will be able to receive, test, and pack 100+ Kuiper satellites per month into the appropriate fairing and claim to have secured 80 launches, but how fast can they manufacture them? They will apply for a waiver from the FCC, if necessary, and. like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos has a lot of money and attended Trump’s inauguration. Earlier, Musk might have stopped an Amazon waiver, but now Trump is looking into deporting him, and  Bezos has made editorial changes at the Washington Post, which he owns. A political contribution might solve the FCC deadline.

IRIS²

IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is a €10.6bn project with 61 per cent funded publicly and the balance coming from the SpaceRise industrial consortium, led by Eutelsat, Hispasat, and SES. SpaceRISE will design, deliver, and operate IRIS² for a period of 12 years.

They have contracted for 274 satellites in LEO and 18 in MEO, with first launches anticipated for 2029 and completion in 2030. Eutelsat will act as prime contractor leading the design of the LEO segment and co-leading the development of common system elements. SES will be responsible for procurement, integration, and operation of the MEO satellites, and Hispasat will lead the very low orbital layer (Low LEO) of the constellation and design, deliver, and operate the ground segment, manage operations, and interconnection with terrestrial networks. They also expect to eventually add a GEO sub-constellation.

This is a unique and complex organization that will have to manage suppliers like Airbus, Thales, OHB, Deutsche Telekom, and  Orange. Bureaucracy might be a problem, but Europe can not rely on Starlink as Ukraine has during the war with Russia.

Three Chinese Dwarfs

China has pursued a strategy of competition among government-owned organizations, and it initiated two government-owned constellation projects, Hongyun and Hongyan, in 2016. In April 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission included “satellite internet” on its “new infrastructures” list, and China applied to the ITU for a new constellation, called  GW. Hongyun and Hongyan were dropped, and GW, also called China Satnet or Guowang, emerged as China’s global Internet service provider and it was followed by two others, Qianfan and Honghu. These are all far behind Starlink, but they will have protected markets

Gwowang

China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 called for building an integrated communications, Earth observation, and satellite navigation system with global coverage. Guowang is the constellation they called for.

Guowang consists of two sub-constellations, designated GW-A59 (6,080 satellites) and GW-2 (6,912 satellites). GW-2 will orbit at 1,145 km, and  GW-A59 will orbit around half that. The ITU filing was in September of 2020, and after a long delay, the first ten GW-2 satellites were launched at the end of 2024, and they now have 81 in orbit. The cadence has picked up recently -- China has launched another batch of Guowang satellites. This was the ninth Guowang launch this year and the sixth in the last 30 days. Even at this cadence, it is unclear that they can manufacture and launch enough satellites to meet the ITU launch deadlines. Perhaps the Chinese have decided that, given launch and manufacturing resources, they would not be able to meet ITU deadlines for all of their constellations, so they are focusing on Guowang, which can be seen as most critical for the government

Little technical information is available, but considering the capacities of the various rockets used to launch Guowang satellites and the number of satellites in each launch, it seems there are two sizes of satellite: large satellites of around 16,600 kg and smaller satellites of around 889 kg. While these are imprecise estimates, they indicate two classes of satellite with different capabilities and functions. (Note that the relatively high altitude GW-2 sub-constellation has both large and small satellites).

Several Guowang test satellites have also been launched, suggesting strategic government and military applications like Signals intelligence, positioning, navigation, and imaging applications in addition to Internet service.

Qianfan

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), a private company backed by the Shanghai municipal government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is developing the Qianfan constellation. The planned satellites will orbit at 1,160 km, which is higher than the other announced LEO satellite competitors except Telesat. While this will increase latency, collision risk, satellite lifespan, handoff frequency, and coverage footprint should improve.

Their plan called for 648 satellites providing regional service by the end of 2025 and global service with a second 648 satellites by the end of 2027. By 2030, they planned to have 15,000 satellites in orbit and offer direct-to-mobile service, but it does not look like they will make these goals.

It's been a year since the first Qianfan launch, but five months since the last one. Is the slowdown due to satellite or launch availability, or are they pausing for some redesign, or both? Blaine Curcio reports that they are “having a very hard time finding rockets to send full batches of 18 satellites to orbit, but they have also had operational problems. The upper stage of the first launch fragmented, creating over 300 pieces of trackable debris, and ninety satellites are in orbit, but fourteen have not reached their operational altitude. Furthermore, the satellites are interfering with astronomy, and some are tumbling. Regardless of the cause for delays, Qianfan is unlikely to meet its ITU launch deadlines.

Qianfan is a more direct competitor to Starlink than Guowang, which is primarily focused on domestic telecommunications and national security. SSST has been actively marketing wholesale service through foreign telecom companies under the Sailspace brand name. They had MOUs with several nations in six initial target markets, as shown below, and they have subsequently been actively marketing in Africa.

Honghu-3

Landspace Technology Corporation was founded in 2015, following a 2014 central government policy shift that opened the launch and small satellite sectors to private capital. Landscape owns 48% of Hongqing Technology, which is developing the 10,000-satellite Honghu-3 constellation. Honghu-3 satellites will be in six planes, ranging from 340-550 km. 

Landspace has a pending IPO and is developing the Zhuque-3rocket, which they plan to launch later this year. The Zhuque-3 will carry about 21,000 kg to LEO in an expendable configuration – less than an expendable Falcon 9, but more than a reusable Falcon 9. This connection to a rocket manufacturer is reminiscent of SpaceX's relationship with Starlink and Project Kuiper's with Blue Origin.

Honghu-3 was announced after Guowang and Qianfan, and relatively little is known of their plans and technology, but Landspace has experience as a private company. (I asked the ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot chatbots how much state and private capital Landspace had received since it was founded, and the answers and explanations varied so much as to make them worthless, but they all agreed that the private investment was greater than the public.)

Elon Musk assured us that he would not stop the Starlink service in Ukraine. But, given his feud with Trump, his criticism of President Zelensky, and his rash actions with DOGE, can he be trusted? (His termination of USAID is estimated to have resulted in 340,000 deaths so far.)

When asked about Musk’s influence, Josef Aschbacher, director general of the European Space Agency, said he declined to comment on “the internal politics of the United States and who should influence these decisions” but added “If changes happen and if our US partners and friends are changing their plans, of course we will be ready for plan B.”

The US has decided to reduce aid to Ukraine, and Plan B is being considered. Eutelsat is in talks with the EU about the possibility of replacing Starlink in Ukraine

Eutelsat OneWeb is currently the only low-earth orbit (LEO) alternative to Starlink. Germany has paid for “fewer than 1,000” OneWeb terminals in Ukraine, but Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke says the company aims to increase this to between 5,000 and 10,000 "relatively fast."

That is admirable, but I don’t see how OneWeb could come close to replacing Starlink in Ukraine.

For a start, there are limitations of the OneWeb satellites and terminals:

•  Oleg Kutkov, a leading Ukrainian Starlink expert, estimates that there are around 130,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine.
• SpaceX has over 7,500 LEO satellites compared to OneWeb’s 630. (Eutelsat also has 35 geostationary (GEO) satellites).
• Kyivstar, the largest mobile operator in Ukraine, plansdirect-to-device Starlink connectivity later this year.
•  Kyivstar has determined that  OneWeb currently lacks sufficient capacity to move forward on their partnership MOU at this time.
• OneWeb satellites orbit at around 1,200 km, while Starlink satellites are between 336 and 570 km, which gives them a latency advantage for real-time battlefield applications.
• OneWeb’s fixed beams enable it to provide guaranteed service levels in specific locations, but Starlink’s dynamic-beam architecture makes better use of available capacity in densely populated areas and in tracking mobile users.
• OneWeb’s fixed terminals are more expensive than Starlink’s, and the portable terminals are heavier and more expensive.
• There are ten different Starlink terminal models/revisions – they have had time to iterate designs and mature and refine manufacturing processes for both terminals and satellites.
• Similarly, Starlink satellite designs have evolved – throughput has increased, intersatellite links were introduced, etc.

More importantly, Starlink is embedded in Ukraine. Systems, supply chains, distribution channels, organizations, and applications have been developed around it, and users, engineers, repair people, etc., have been trained. The first Starlink terminals arrived in Ukraine over three years ago. A week later, they were in the field and providing nationwide connectivity through ground stations in three nearby countries, and within a month, there were 5,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Starlink has played an unprecedented, critical role in the management of the war, international relations, and on the battlefield field and it has enabled significant civilian tech mobilization.

One more factor – Starlink is financially stronger than Eutelsat. Eutelsat stock was €28.06 per share in April 2015. When Trump berated Zelensky at the White House on February 28, 2025, it was down to €1.20. As a result of that meeting, it jumped to €7.84 on March 3, but it’s now back down to €2.31.

While OneWeb cannot replace Starlink in Ukraine, it can complement it. For example, OneWeb could provide connectivity and resilient backup for fixed locations like government offices and hospitals, and since Eutelsat operates both GEO and  LEO satellites, latency-tolerant applications like streaming video could be offloaded onto their GEO satellites.

“Elon, let me inside this thing, and I can fix it for you” (Image from this podcast)

Dave Taht died on April 1st. I met him only recently, and never in person, but his passing saddens me. His technical work and evangelism have improved the Internet, and I will give some examples of his contributions to the Internet community and users, but I am sad because he was a good person — idealistic, unselfish, open, and funny. I'll miss him. First, his contributions, then his values.

Contributions

Taht was best known for his work on buffer bloat and its impact on Internet performance. As packets hop across the Internet, they are queued in buffers while waiting to be forwarded.  Long queues, “buffer bloat,” means increased latency, transit time between a source and its destination, and jitter, transit time variance.

Internet service providers typically advertise and price based on service speed, but latency is critical to interactive applications like gaming, teleconferencing, and Web surfing. (For a deep dive on buffer bloat, see this post by Jim Gettys, who coined the term buffer bloat.)

With Jim Gettys, Taht co-founded the buffer bloat Project, where he implemented, tested, and integrated active queue management (AQM) algorithms CoDel, FQ-CoDel, and CAKE, and led the CeroWRT (Customer Edge Router Wireless Router) project that focused on home, office, and other edge networks.

Gettys shared Taht's focus on the edge, writing “Surprising to most, AQM is essential for broad band service, home routers, and even operating systems: it isn't just for big Internet routers” in 2011 and more recently he said “Buffer bloat can happen anywhere in a network, though by far the most common locations are before/after the WiFi hop in the router, and then the hop from the home router back to the ISP”

Given his interests in space and edge networks, Starlink was a natural focus for Taht, and he talked about Starlink in this 8-minute podcast excerpt. Taht had known Elon Musk since he had worked on an ill-fated satellite that was on a Falcon 1 rocket when it blew up, so he emailed Musk in 2013 and offered to help, but Musk was not interested. The plan for Starlink was announced in January 2015, and when it eventually entered beta in 2020, Taht learned of the latency problem and emailed Vint Cerf, who arranged a meeting with Starlink engineers on Taht’s boat, but he did no work for them.

In January 2024, Elon Musk announced that “the biggest single goal for Starlink from a technical standpoint is to get the mean latency below 20 ms." By March, they were delivering results and listing latency as well as upload and download speed on their availability map. Unfortunately, Musk and his engineers did not listen to Taht in 2013 and 2020.

Values

The National Science Foundation backbone network (NSFNET) was created in 1986 to serve research and education in the US. The network grew rapidly, and in 1988, access was expanded to include international research and education organizations. By 1996, 28 nations were connected. (Fun fact – Cuba’s first link was to NSFNET.)

Taht was 30 years old when NSFNET was decommissioned and the Internet transitioned to fully commercial operation, but his values were established by then. With his skill and experience, he could have found lucrative work or built a large company, but he was committed to open-source software and universal connectivity.

Everything he wrote was open-source, including his songs. He is surely the only composer/musician to write geeky songs about the Internet, for example, this little ditty about the GNU Public License, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Eric Raymond. He also spent years in Nicaragua, trying to find ways to bring the Internet (and power, lighting, food, medicine, and books) there as an outgrowth of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project.

He understood J. C. R. Licklider’s conception of the Internet as a means of creating communities of common interest rather than common location. He created a Starlink list, which is where I met him. The caliber of conversation on the list is an implicit tribute to Taht.

The photo of Taht at the top of this post was taken from the podcast in which he offered to fix the Starlink router, which was in beta at the time, for free (though he wouldn’t mind a thank-you tweet, a new motor for his boat, or even a Christmas card). The photo illustrates his values. He could have lived in a mansion, but he chose to live on a boat with a guitar nearby. To know Dave Taht better, watch the entire video.

Appendix

I met Dave recently and only knew him online, so I asked Perpleity, Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT to list memorials. They returned several broken links, and Claude and Deepspeak were not current. I found these:

On March 19th there were 5,000 terminals in Ukraine and it was clear that Starlink would play an unprecedented, critical role in the war. President Zelenskyy was using social media and teleconferencing in his roles as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, a global diplomat, and a leader of the Ukrainian people. Starlink was being used to compensate for Russian destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, by civilians and on the battlefield, often in conjunction with drones. Starlink has also enabled important civilian volunteer contributions to the war effort, reminiscent of the working women and the victory gardens during World War 2  in the US.

Starlink’s value is now well established. Kutkov estimates that there are around 170,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine, which is constantly increasing. For example:

• The armed forces have around 100,000 terminals provided by various ministries.
• It is common for soldiers to purchase their own terminals. (One retailer has sold almost 2,000 terminals to soldiers so far this year).
• There are thousands of terminals on drone aircraft and boats built by local companies. (One local vendor bought 10,000 terminals for drones).
•  Charity foundations like Serhiy Prytula contribute terminals. (The retail price of a roaming terminal in Ukraine is $613).
• Private donors (including Kutkov) contribute drones and terminals. 
• One service center reported that 90% of the military terminals coming for repairs are privately owned.

Musk’s Grok AI chatbot estimates Starlink’s revenue for Ukraine support is “likely in the ballpark of $150-250 million per year as of now”, a relatively unimportant amount, and about $50 million of that is paid by Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, has expressed a willingness to seek alternatives to Starlink if necessary and was invaded by Hitler 1939.

Because of recent statements and actions by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Ukraine and its allies became concerned that Starlink service might possibly be cut off.  

As enumerated in this timeline, Trump has upended the US approach to Ukraine and treated Moscow more as an ally since he became President, culminating in his recent suspension of military aid to and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after he and Vice President Vance berated Zelenskyy in a televised meeting, overstating the amount of US support, falsely claiming that Ukraine had not thanked the US for it’s support and insisting on a “deal” with no security guarantee. 

(Recall that in September 1938, English, French, and Italian leaders signed the Munich Agreement, giving Hitler control of Czechoslovakia in exchange for his promise not to take more land in Europe, and Ukrainians are dying in this war).

Elon Musk has also urged Ukraine to accept peace without a security guarantee to stop the bloodshed. His statement that without Starlink the entire front line would collapse caused concern that he might cut Starlink service off.

Thankfully, Musk has since clarified his position, stating:

"To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals. Without Starlink, the Ukrainian lines would collapse, as the Russians can jam all other communications! We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip."

Taking Musk at his word, Starlink service will remain available.

Update 2/5/2026

Russian forces have been increasingly using Starlink satellite systems to extend the range of BM-35 strike drones to conduct mid-range strikes against the Ukrainian rear:

https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/2016013301436526765

SpaceX has now compiled a white list of authorized Starlink terminals, and terminals used by Russian troops in Ukraine have been deactivated

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/starlink-used-by-russian-forces-deactivated-battlefield-ukraine-says-2026-02-05/

In April 2020, The Chinese State Council's executive meeting declared information technology, including satellite Internet,  an important part of the “new technology” and in October, China applied for Guowang, a  12,992-satellite Internet service constellation. Subsequently, a few Guowang test satellites were launched and two other large Chinese constellations were announced, and one, Thousand Sails,  already has 54 satellites in orbit. (Thousand Sails launches have had problems with debris and orbit raising, which attests to the immaturity of the Chinese space industry). Finally, Guowang has launched its first production satellites.

As shown above, ten satellites were launched into orbits about 1,100 kilometers above the Earth, with an inclination of 86.5 degrees. The satellites were launched on a Long March 5B rocket which can carry 23,000 Kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and they were stacked in a manner that optimized “the use of vertical and radial space within the payload fairing.” If the rocket was fully loaded, they would be quite large – over 2,000 kg each.

For comparison, Starlink’s current V2-mini satellites are 750-800 kg, and the V3 satellites, which will not begin launching until SpaceX's Starship rockets are in service, are expected to be around 1,900 kg.

Thousand Sail's satellites are smaller than either. They recently launched 18 satellites using a Long March 6A rocket which can carry 4,000 kg to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). I could not find a mass to LEO for the Long March 6A so I asked four AI services to estimate what a rocket capable of launching 4,000 kg to SSO would be able to launch to LEO. The average estimate was 5,700 kg total or only 317 kg per satellite.

Assuming capability is a function of mass, Guowang satellites will be significantly more powerful than Thousand Sails or Starlink's current satellites. I don't know what those functional differences will be – greater capacity, faster data rates, more power, improved inter-satellite capability, connectivity to 6G devices, etc. For speculation on the features of Starlink's forthcoming V3 satellites see slide 62 in this presentation and this article).

The Guowang constellation will also orbit at a relatively high altitude. The first ten are at 1,100 km and over half the planned constellation will be roughly the same altitude.  Similarly, Thousand Sails' initial 1.296 satellites are orbiting at 1,160 km. While Starlink initially applied to have some 1,100 km satellites, they later lowered their planned orbits. Guowang's relatively high altitude will help compensate for a lack of ground stations.

In an earlier post, I asked whether Guowang could manufacture and launch satellites fast enough to meet Its ITU commitment of launching 10% of the constellation within two years after the bring-into-use (BIU) date 50% by year 5 and all by year 7. Now that production satellites are in orbit and working, I assume the BIU clock has started or will start soon. Given the mass and orbit altitudes of the satellites and Chinese satellite manufacturing and launch capability, they will have a difficult time meeting the ITU deadlines despite new rockets, but in our politically divided world, some nations may ignore those deadlines or Guowang might simply reapply. (It’s even conceivable that Starlink could launch some Guowang satellites since Elon Musk has to please the Chinese government to protect Tesla’s sales and manufacturing in China).

Guowang is late, but the government is committed and the satellites may be comparable to Starlink's V3 satellites. If they can launch the constellation, there will still be a market in serving BRICS and other politically-allied or neutral nations as well as sensitive government and military organizations that are increasingly concerned with Elon Musk’s political ties and mercurial nature. The large mass of their satellites may also result in features that increase their appeal in some applications like backhaul from remote locations that are not reached by fiber. It will be interesting to see what happens when Guowang ITU deadlines expire.

Update 3/8/2025

GuoWang has launched another batch of satellites on a Long March 8A rocket. Space Force cataloged nine objects in orbit, suggesting eight payloads in 862 by 870-kilometer orbits inclined by 50.0 degrees. While I could not find any definitive data online, Grok estimates that a Long March 8A could likely launch 7,200 kg to that orbit, which would imply about 800 kg per satellite, around the mass of the current V2 Starlink satellites and more than double the mass of the Thousand Sails satellites.

Update 5/5/2025

Guowang has launched another batch of satellites on a high-capacity Long March 5B rocket, implying that these are the larger GW2 satellites.

Guowang Launches

Date

Rocket

Satellites

12/16/2024

LM 5B

10

2/11/2025

LM 8A

9?

4/28/2025

LM 5B

10?

WELCOME community WiFi service is now available in Kenya and it might be a game changer like public access telecenters and WiFi hotspots were in the past.

Starlink launched maritime service in July 2022, and by January 2023 Elcome International LLC, a maritime technology solution provider since 1970, had installed multi-antenna Starlink Maritime arrays on two super yachts with more than 100 passengers and crew. Elcome launched its Starlink maritime service in May 2024 and now has over 3,000 terminals under management,

In May, I had a positive experience using Starlink on a cruise ship off the Northwest coast of Africa. The ship had 264 passengers and a crew of 120. We were a small, floating community. Elcomm is now transferring its experience with maritime communities to communities on land. 

Elcome Managing Director Jimmy Grewal set a goal of "creating a Wi-Fi hotspot service that I would be happy to use daily, and be proud to show my friends" and is “very passionate” about their WELCOME Community WiFi service for rural areas. WELCOME in Kenya is offered as Karibu Connect. (Karibu means welcome in Swahili).

The solar-powered gateway shown here provides over 400 Mbps to roughly a square kilometer. They offer two configurations:

• Up to 50 users
• Starlink Enterprise Terminal
• 8-Port Switch
• Two Wi-Fi Access Points
• Ksh,106,999 ($826.31)

• More than 50 users
• Starlink Flat High-Performance Terminal
• 8-Port Switch
• Four Wi-Fi Access Points
• Ksh.377,000 377,000 ($2,911.42)

They used UUCP links to communicate with their Russian customers and soon connected to Europe (EUnet) through Tampere University of Technology in Finland. The ability to make regular, long international calls needed for data transfer was unheard of at that time in Russia -- The Kurchatov Institute was an important research center.

My colleague Juri Gornostaev and I used that UUCP link to organize the First East-West International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Moscow. After the conference, I stayed in Moscow to meet and hang out with the Relcom staff. They were friendly, smart, idealistic, and anti-communist. They were members of the international Internet community as imagined by visionaries like Vannevar Bush and J. C. R. Licklider.

I also know the character of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Russia commits daily war crimes in Ukraine and political opponents who are not imprisoned tend to fall from the windows of tall buildings. Furthermore, Freedom House assessed Internet freedom in 70 nations last year and the only nations judged to have less Internet freedom than Russia were China, Myanmar, Iran, and Cuba. 

Given the uncertainties mentioned above, the government's track record, Soldatov's contributions to society, and the fact that the IP address transfer never took place, he has been under house arrest awaiting trial and is in ill health, this prison sentence is politically motivated and morally unjustified.

For more on Relcom's early days and the role it played at the time of the Soviet coup attempt, see:

• Relom, an appropriate technology network
• Before the Twitter revolution, there was the Usenet revolution
• Wide Area Collaboration
• History is written and revised by the winners -- can the Internet Archive change that?
• Soviet Coup Archive, including Usenet traffic
• The Internet as an information resource

As shown here, RTK-PPP augments location data from multiple satellites with the rover's position relative to a terrestrial base station. (The rover could be an autonomous car, truck, crop harvester, etc.).

One can imagine base stations along highways, freeways, and even in cities, but that would require investments by governments at all levels, auto producers, and other private companies. It would also need standards that are compatible with all GNSS systems. This will not happen overnight, but I am not surprised to see Geely leading the way because:

• Geely founder and Chairman Li Shufu is a risk taker in the mold of Elon Musk and Geespace was initiated about six years ago when he “floated his idea of using hundreds of proprietary mini, low-orbit satellites as a more accurate global positioning system for self-driving cars.” 
• China has built the world's biggest EV charging network, in stark contrast to US failure. This indicates a will to invest in mobility infrastructure.
• Geely is aware of and perhaps collaborating with Chinese GNSS operator BeiDou which is working toward global centimeter-accurate positioning utilizing LEO, MEO, and GEO satellites augmented by terrestrial ground stations. 
• Geely brands sold 2.79 million units in 2023 and China space expert Blaine Curcio concludes that "Within 5-10 years, Geespace could conceivably have a constellation of satellites connecting all Geely cars in a very interesting example of vertical integration (actual use cases pending)." 
• ChatGPT reports that BeiDou currently offers a Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) coverage in much of China and plans to cover the entire nation, which is true, but mistakenly claimed there were GBAS instances outside of China at this time. (However, BeiDou's standard satellite navigation service is used in many nations, which must have confused ChatGPT).

A final note -- several of the references in this post are to Blaine Curcio's China Space Monitor. Check it out if you are interested in what China is doing in space. I also used but took with a grain of salt, conversations with ChanGPT: chat1 and chat2.

1. Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit
2. Name of Judge: Aileen Cannon
3. Does this complaint concern the behavior of the judge(s) in a particular lawsuit or lawsuits? Yes
4. Court: U. S. District Court for the District of Florida
5. Case number: 23-80101-CR-Cannon
6. Are (were) you a party or lawyer in the lawsuit? Neither

I recently used Starlink on a cruise along the coast of Northwest Africa and I'll summarize my experience below, but first let me explain why I put some in the title of this post. I posted the following request on the Reddit Cruise group: "What has been your experience of Starlink Internet service on Seabourn or other cruise lines? How was latency? Do video chats work smoothly? Games? etc." Here are some of the replies:

• It was amazing. Streamed video on two devices at once, I was able to log in through my VPN and work remotely across the world, and WiFi calling was seamless. I had no idea cruise Internet could be that great.
• The Internet was great, even in Antarctica.
• It was FAST.
• Zoom was fine. WhatsApp calls crystal clear too.
• Latency was a bit high for something like live multiplayer gaming, but good enough for video chats or video streaming.
• Very good mb/s. Variable latency. 
• It's usually still on the slower side of things.
• It's better than without Starlink, but still pretty terrible.
• It still Sucks.
• It's slow hot garbage.

In his January 12th  SpaceX update, Elon Musk said the biggest goal for Starlink from a technical standpoint is to get the mean latency below 20 ms. He expanded by saying that given the speed of light, 8 ms is the absolute minimum latency for a satellite at 550 km. He believes they can optimize terrestrial and inter-satellite links, and minimize queueing delays and dropped packets, to recude the the rest of the time to below 10 ms. He predicted that eventually"Starlink will be more responsive than ground Intenet in most cases."

Last week, SpaceX released news of progress toward the 20 ms latency goal. They have worked to reduce latency throughout the Starlink system. Since the begining of the year, they have deployed and tested 193 different satellite software builds, 75 gateway software builds, 222 Starlink software builds, and 57 WiFi software builds. 

In the United States, they found that median latency was reduced by more than 30%, from 48.5ms to 33ms during peak usage hours, and worst-case peak hour latency had dropped by over 60%, from over 150ms to less than 65ms. Outside the United States median latency was reduced by up to 25% and worst-case latencies by up to 35%. The map shown here is interactive and shows availability and upload and download speeds in addition to latency.

Whatever the number of terminals in the country, they require support. They were purchased, delivered, and set up. Users were trained and they require real-time access for troubleshooting and assistance. Broken terminals have to be repaired and some terminals have been modified. Civilian tech volunteers are doing much of this work. 

There are several Starlink support centers throughout Ukraine. For obvious reasons, they are secretive about their work, but one large one is Nebogray in Lviv. Neborgray has repaired 5,976 Starlink terminals and converted 516 for portable use mounted on vehicle roofs. In addition to the service centers, there are many individual craftsmen and small services throughout the country.

The work at Nebogry is performed by highly qualified volunteers. For example, Oleg Kutkov. is a senior engineer at Ubiquiti, and he devotes his spare time to Starlink research. He bought what may have been the first Starlink terminal in Ukraine on eBay before the war and does teardowns and research studies like this recent unboxing and review of the Version 4 Starlink terminal on his blog. Oleg is an active participant in the Starlink mailing list and the 15,700-member People's Starlink Facebook group.

The Facebook group was created by The People's Starlink project, which is involved in refurbishing, adapting, repairing, and providing technical support, as well as procuring and upgrading satellite communication terminals from SpaceX's Starlink for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other defenders of Ukraine. 

With the help of many contributors, including Oleg, People's Starlink founder Vladimir Stepanets has written a 246-page Starlink Handbook for Military Users, which begins with a message from the author “Greetings defenders of Ukraine!”

• What is Starlink?
• Starlink Terminals
• Powering Starlink terminals
• Expanding and collapsing Starlink terminals
• Terminal management and settings
• Safety of using Starlink terminals
• Diagnostics and problem-solving
• Starlink in network infrastructures

This is the second (and first public) edition of the handbook and it will continue evolving. It is currently available in Ukrainian, but Stepanets is discussing translations into several other languages and plans to publish it as a book.

The IT Army of Ukraine is an international, loosely connected organization of Ukrainian and foreign ethical hackers. They have created an online service that Ukrainian allies can use to generate denial-of-service attacks. Of course, one man's "ethical hacker" is another man's "terrorist," and Ukraine has petitioned The International Criminal Court to investigate Russian cyberattacks as war crimes. The International Committee of the Red Cross has published rules of engagement for civilian hackers involved in conflicts and the IT Army will make a best effort to follow the rules.

Today, non-technical people like Violetta Oliynyk, an artist and jeweler, are assembling drones in their spare time. She learned drone assembly by taking an online course from Prometheus, a nine-year-old education site with over 400 courses online. (The course was developed for the Victory Drones project). Social Drones UA is another volunteer drone assembly project. They vet then train and support potential assemblers with a how-to video and online support. 

Ukrainians are also assembling battery packs from batteries in discarded vapes, which is reminiscent of Americans saving and turning in excess cooking fat to be used in explosives during World War II.

Civilian volunteers and Ukrainian tech companies have pivoted to military innovation and production. Ukraine was technologically advanced before the war and has been forced to innovate and improvise. If Ukraine survives, the tech sector will thrive when peace comes. 

Ukraine first came back online when Elon Musk activated his low-­altitude Starlink satellite internet, as he would later do in Iran. The net was crucial to Ukrainian forces, who were issued the compact, portable Starlink antennas. But in Kyiv, self-­described “tech and space nerd” Oleg Kutkov reconstructed a Starlink dish from eBay, and after contacting SpaceX support, caught a signal. “I was the first civilian user of Starlink here in Ukraine,” says Kutkov, 34, who began a Face­book group that has grown to 8,700 people. “They read about me in the news, and they were all worrying about connectivity because the internet is really important here to get all the news, to get notifications and so on.”