Satellite profiles updated for 2024

The companies included are EchoStar, Eutelsat, Kuiper, Lynk, SES/Intelsat, Starlink, Telesat and Viasat.

The past year has been one of M&A among satellite operators. Viasat acquired Inmarsat (May 2023) and Eutelsat merged with OneWeb (September 2023), while SES is in the process of buying Intelsat (expected 2025).

The purpose of all this M&A activity was partly to enable a multi-orbit approach, but satellite operators still need wholesale deals to fill out their strategies. Viasat and Intelsat, for example, are both buying wholesale low Earth orbit (LEONGSO, or non-geostationary satellite orbit…) capacity from OneWeb.

There could be an excess of LEO bandwidth in the coming years, making it a buyer’s market. Starlink and OneWeb are already commercially available, with Telesat and Amazon’s Kuiper coming online soon. Companies may be better off buying in LEO capacity than building their own LEO constellation.

Given all these multi-orbit alliances, it was ironic that GEOObjects in the GSO, or Geosynchronous Orbi… and LEO operators should fall out at WRC-23The World Radiocommunication Conference (W… over interference limits. The LEO operators lost this particular battle.

Satellite direct-to-device (D2D) services are now attracting more regulatory attention, and bigger companies are being drawn to the market. Lynk and AST SpaceMobile were the original start-up pioneers and have been developing their services for years.

Now everyone wants a piece of the action. Starlink, Viasat, EchoStar and others have either launched their own satellite D2D services or are planning to. After all their hard work, the pioneers might have to face some stiff competition.

The updated satellite profiles, along with an introductory overview, are available here. Links to individual profiles are below.

• Overview
• EchoStar
• Eutelsat
• Kuiper
• Lynk
• SES/Intelsat
• Starlink
• Telesat
• Viasat