Previously known as the International Maritime Organisation.
Bought by yet another Canadian pension system (in part) who seem to be buying up as much as the Chinese are.
'We've bought the wrong satellites': UK tech gamble baffles experts
?What?s happened is that the very talented lobbyists at OneWeb have convinced the government that we can completely redesign some of the satellites to piggyback a navigation payload on it. It?s bolting an unproven technology on to a mega-constellation that?s designed to do something else. It?s a tech and business gamble.?
(I suppose the Graun would say that.)
But the Graun was quoting!
?The fundamental starting point is, yes, we?ve bought the wrong satellites,? said Dr Bleddyn Bowen, a space policy expert at the University of Leicester. ?OneWeb is working on basically the same idea as Elon Musk?s Starlink: a mega-constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, which are used to connect people on the ground to the internet.
?What?s happened is that the very talented lobbyists at OneWeb have convinced the government that we can completely redesign some of the satellites to piggyback a navigation payload on it. It?s bolting an unproven technology on to a mega-constellation that?s designed to do something else. It?s a tech and business gamble.?
Giles Thorne, a research analyst at Jeffries, agreed. ?This situation is nonsensical to me,? he said. ?This situation looks like nationalism trumping solid industrial policy.?
Also - who owns the other 80%?
OK so Bowen is a space policy expert. But is there actually *evidence* of that sales pitch, or is it just speculation (even if expert)?
I never thought there was much point* building Galileo, let alone the UK also having its own GNSS, so perhaps using something substantially different to GPS/GLONAS/BEIDOU/GALILEO does make sense, Lord Willets (associated with Surrey Satellites) seemed to think it had merit when interviewed on Today during the week.
[*] as soon as the EU said they'd put it on frequencies close to GPS so the USA wouldn't be able to jam it, the USA just said if push comes to shove, we'll shoot yours down
Isn't the US subscribed to a treaty that forbids that ?
Perhaps it is, and perhaps it would abide to it; nevertheless GALILEO ended-up using different frequencies.
Could all be moot anyway.
1) It's an auction, yet to happen 2)HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.