Author: Shaun Waterman

We’ll always need GEO, even in a world that’s gone head over heels for LEO. It’s a matter of physics: The Geostationary Orbit (GEO) has unique characteristics. Because a satellite in GEO stays at a fixed point in the sky relative to any location on the ground, it’s the simplest orbit to communicate with, in...

In the maritime sector, for many years, the long-sought “Treasure Island” of connectivity could be summed up in four words: As good as shore. “We would always ask, can we get as good as shore connectivity? Can we have a broadband connection on board the vessel? That’s what we termed as the best connectivity, in...

The relationship between satellite operators and telcos can at times seem like a troubled marriage — “It is difficult to live together. But it’s more difficult to live alone,” Jean-Luc Vuillemin, special executive advisor to the CEO of mobile network operator Orange, told a session at last week’s SATELLITE 2024. Leaders representing Orange, Telstra, and...

International Telecommunication Union General Secretary Doreen Bogdan-Martin sought to position her agency as the conscience of the space industry in her keynote address to SATELLITE 2024, urging support for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development agenda and efforts to connect the third of humanity, overwhelmingly poor and rural, who are still offline. The satellite industry, through...

After Russian military hackers knocked much of Viasat‘s KA-SAT network offline at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, U.S. intelligence officials were so concerned about the threat to other satellite operators that they organized an unprecedented briefing for company executives. Although it was classified, executives without a security clearance were given a temporary one...

Getting cybersecurity right at a federal agency means learning to speak the language of the program and mission managers who actually run the IT systems you’re trying to protect against hackers and cyberspies, said Rob Powell, a senior advisor on cybersecurity in the Office of the CIO (OCIO) at NASA. “The culture at NASA is...

LOS ANGELES — Frank Turner, technical director of the Space Development Agency, is a man with a lot of problems, and he doesn’t mind talking about them. “I’m not standing here today giving you answers,” he told an audience of satellite industry executives at the CyberLEO conference. “I’m standing here today giving you problems. I’m...

LOS ANGELES — MITRE, the federal contractor that runs R&D labs for the U.S. government, is developing a space cyber lab where real satellite hardware and software can be tested to ensure security. It’s just one of a host of new measures that space companies are adopting to harden their systems against hackers, panelists at the CyberLEO...

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Space Force is offering free, non-attributable cybersecurity supply chain and vulnerability scanning services to both its commercial vendors and to other government agencies, Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, the chief information officer for Space Systems Command (SSC), confirmed Thursday. Speaking to attendees at the CyberLEO cyber security conference in Los Angeles on...

The ground segment is experiencing tectonic shifts in the marketplace with emerging technology and new business models. These conversations were front and center at SATELLITE 2022. In this article, Shaun Waterman rounds up the top points from ground technology discussions at SATELLITE. As satellite operators have wrestled with the commoditization of bandwidth, they’ve sought to...