
'We've bought the wrong satellites': UK tech gamble baffles experts - DanBC
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/26/satellite-experts-oneweb-investment-uk-galileo-brexit
======
Wistar
I can't help but hear "We've bought the wrong satellites" in Peter Sallis's
voice:

"Woah! It's the wrong satellites Grommit, and they've gone wrong!"

~~~
TLightful
Hah. I can't get Michael Caine's voice out of my head ...

"We've only gone and bought the wrong bloody satellites"

Our Government is a laughing stock ... It'll probably take a generation to
recover from this mess.

------
donatj
> intended to mitigate the UK’s loss of access to the EU’s Galileo satellite
> navigation system.

I thought Galileo was an open system? Quoting Wikipedia “ The EU's stance is
that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and
everyone.”

~~~
tialaramex
All the GNSS systems have a mixture of services intended for the general
public and so keys are public - and systems for which the keys needed aren't
public. Most of them (e.g. GPS) say the non-public keys are for the military,
since the EU does not have a military it says these keys are for "Public
regulated services" and highlights that Galileo is ostensibly 100% civilian.

The UK won't have access to PRS service from Galileo. It isn't entitled to
equivalent access to GPS, and obviously not to GLONASS or Beidou. So rather
than say "We're a small unimportant island so that's fine" our government
feels it absolutely must have equivalent capability.

~~~
growlist
> "We're a small unimportant island so that's fine"

5th or 6th biggest economy in the world, population of 70m+, nuclear weapons,
globally influential in various different ways, in London has one of world's
top cities and world's largest financial centre by some measures, has many
world leading businesses, one of the world's most visited countries, so small
and unimportant that some say the EU faces an existential crisis as a result
of its departure...

Small yes but unimportant is certainly debatable - and it makes me sad that
people try to run this country down, when the fact that thousands of migrants
are willing to risk death to get here tells a very different story.

~~~
JustARandomGuy
The "globally influential" and London being a top financial center will
certainly decrease after Brexit. You'll see a lot of EU banking moving from
London to Berlin or possibly Paris.

~~~
brummm
Banking would move to Frankfurt in Germany, not Berlin.

~~~
walshemj
After the recent wirecard fiasco Frankfurt is not going to very popular for
that.

~~~
dathinab
Why not, it's like saying after Facebooks privacy scandal silicon valley
became less popular for __other __companies.

(Yes SV became less popular in recent year, but because of other reasons).

~~~
walshemj
It was the regulators actions I was thinking of - going after FT Journalists
etc.

Its about the credibility of the financial system.

Some of the senior people at BAFIN should have resigned by now

------
dr_orpheus
I think this is so ironic given that a company in the UK manufactures the
navigation payloads for the Galileo satellites

[https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-
hub/featured/navigation](https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/featured/navigation)

------
xondono
Whatever the incentives were, I actually prefer this choice to the
alternatives.

This project (like Galileo) is about subsidizing the space sector first, and
application is a distant 34th. I'd rather see the money flowing to people
trying new stuff that to stablished companies building the same old systems.

~~~
manquer
Galileo had SST( a British company) building a lot of the components . OneWeb
only has a official HQ in the U.K and is just an operator, I don't any
development happens in the U.K and was largely done by Airbus.

Perhaps it can change in the future, however given OneWeb's uncertain future
post their bankruptcy I am not sure this investment is the best way to promote
the space sector.

~~~
xondono
I’m not saying it’s a good bet. I’m saying that if you are going to throw the
money out the window anyway, throwing it at new stuff is a much more promising
heuristic (even if in this particular case it’s a bad move)

------
C1sc0cat
Well maybe if we had supported our local high tech businesses better the UK
would be self sufficient and if Martlesham / Marconi had been better manged we
would have our own 5g tech.

~~~
arethuza
Marconi used to be a pretty impressive company - I used to know some people
from the team that worked on nuclear power station simulators and they were
all pretty smart! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like their senior management
were quite so smart:

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver.observerbusiness)

~~~
SiempreViernes
Here's a story from 2012 about how the Fore management recalls the history of
the company, complete with words like "tech superstars" and "multibillion
dollar success".

[https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-...](https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-
founders-reunite-for-evening.html)

~~~
arethuza
Well, you have to congratulate the management team at FORE - they even pointed
out that ATM might be on the way out during the acquisition process and
Marconi still bought them.

------
d_silin
I'd like to note that it is feasible to reuse current OneWeb satellite as ad-
hoc GNSS, just the accuracy will be much worse than current service from
Galileo or GPS

~~~
gpm
Why is this the case? Is triangulating your position from LEO harder somehow?
Or is it something like that satellites don't have accurate enough clocks? Or
something else?

~~~
ivalm
Geostationary satellites have very well known position and use atomic clocks
to ensure they are synchronized. So when you get a signal for 3 geostationary
sats you can have both extreme precision in their position and in time delay
between your and sat locations.

For LEO sats the sat position is more complicated and they don’t have atomic
clocks to synchronize. Now, their position IS somewhat known and they do have
clocks so they can work somewhat, just not as well (alternatively since there
will be a ton of Leo sats maybe you can do statistical analysis to improve?)

~~~
Denvercoder9
GNSS constellations do not use geostationary satellites.

~~~
jhayward
> _GNSS constellations do not use geostationary satellites._

This is not quite accurate. The main body of GNSS constellations are usually
MEO cut in to several orbital planes, but GPS and Beidou, (Global systems) as
well as QZSS and IRNSS (regional systems) all have GEO satellites broadcasting
a NAV signal payload.

------
CraigJPerry
Seems reasonable at first glance to me:

    
    
      1a. satellite company with products goes bust
      1b. Government wants different type of satellite but prohibitively expensive to pursue
      2. Govt speculates in 1a in order to reduce cost of 1b
    

What’s the smoking gun i missed?

~~~
madaxe_again
You need a truck to move a container of freight across the country. You buy a
skateboard, hoping that you can modify it to do the job.

------
mytailorisrich
There was never a actual will to develop a competitor to Galileo/GPS. This a
political tactic for Brexit.

This is still for the show. This will die out at some point.

~~~
maltelandwehr
If they make the investment, it is more than just show.

But I have my doubts about the end result of this endeavor as well.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
This is essentially a PR-only government run by a disgraced racist former
journalist who has no extended attention span, no useful real-life skills, and
nothing but contempt for STEM culture - but also believes that he's
intelligent enough to talk his way out of any situation.

Expecting anything other than wasted money and failure is an exercise in
unrealistic optimism.

~~~
bennyelv
Ten years ago if you'd predicted that trump would be in the White House and
Johnson would be in No 10, you would have been laughed at...

Nobody's laughing now because the reality isn't funny.

~~~
dillonmckay
Governing and campaigning are very different things, though.

What is the difference in effort between ‘selling’ a $15k website or
application versus writing, maintaining and deploying said application?

~~~
pjc50
Why bother with delivering the application when you can just keep the $15k
with no consequences?

------
credit_guy
Ugh, where do I start? The UK did not buy any satellites. They bought a stake
in a satellite company. Actually, they didn't do that either, they submitted a
bid to buy a stake in a satellite company. The bid will be reviewed, and after
it's approved by the US, they may win it.

Once they have the stake, the satellite company, OneWeb, may build for the UK
some satellites for a new global positioning system, or they may build some
other satellite capabilities. If they go for the first one, they can build
satellites at the same altitude as the ones they have placed in orbit so far
(1200 km), or at a different altitude. If they place them at the 1200km
altitude, it's not clear at all why this would be bad, except that some self-
declared experts pointed out that the current GPS satellites are at a higher
altitude.

~~~
nordsieck
> If they place them at the 1200km altitude, it's not clear at all why this
> would be bad, except that some self-declared experts pointed out that the
> current GPS satellites are at a higher altitude.

The main downside of this is that you typically need more satellites. If I
recall, you need a minimum of 4 satellites to get a position, and more is
beneficial. With modern atomic clocks and other trappings, that could get
expensive.

~~~
credit_guy
Actually, modern atomic clocks should be less expensive, not more expensive
than the ones produced 30 years ago that power the original GPS satellites.
For example, chip-scale atomic clocks [1] can be had for about $1000 [2].
Here's a space rated such atomic clock [3]. I couldn't find the cost, but
let's say it's one hundred times more expensive than a "civilian" version.
It's still negligible even compared to the cost of putting the satellite in
orbit only.

Speaking of which, this calculator [4] shows me that with the same rocket,
going from an altitude of 1000km to 20000km cuts the cargo mass roughly in
half.

And another difference between 20000km and 1000km is the fact that radio
signals decay with the square of the distance. At 20000 km you need an antenna
that's 400 times more powerful than at 1000km. That means you need
correspondingly more solar panels and more radiators. Overall, the satellite
will be many, many times heavier. For example the GPS satellite USA-132
currently in service has a mass of 2 tons [5]. If the lower orbit affords you
a mass reduction not by a factor of 400, but only by a factor of 10, you end
up with 200 kg. The current OneWeb satellites weigh about 150kg.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-
scale_atomic_clock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-scale_atomic_clock)

[2]
[https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article...](https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article/21806867/cant-
afford-an-atomic-clock-get-a-molecular-one)

[3] [https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-
clocks-...](https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-
frequency-references/5207-space-csac#overview)

[4] [https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-
injection-...](https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-injection-
calculator.htm)

[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132)

~~~
nordsieck
OK. But you're still not addressing the main problem.

LEO means you meed more satellites because they're closer to the earth.

If look at the proposed OneWeb satellites, they need 650 of them for their
constellation. I'm sure there's some overlap there, but probably not a ton.
With GPS, you need __much __more overlap - specifically, every part of the
earth need to be able to get a signal from a minimum of 4 satellites.

So you might be looking at somewhere between 650 and 2600 satellites in LEO to
run a GPS type system instead of 24 at the traditional orbit. I just don't see
how that makes sense.

~~~
credit_guy
The number doesn’t seem to be a problem. Specifically, per wikipedia [1]:

“Despite the bankruptcy process in the end of May 2020, OneWeb filed an
application to FCC for increasing the number of satellites to 48,000”

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation)

~~~
nordsieck
> “Despite the bankruptcy process in the end of May 2020, OneWeb filed an
> application to FCC for increasing the number of satellites to 48,000”

It's pretty easy to see that this isn't a real plan; that is to say, if OneWeb
weren't bankrupt, they could never accomplish this. The math is pretty simple.

If we assume that their satellites have a lifespan 2x as long as SpaceX (10
years) and they continue to launch on Soyuz (34 / launch), then they'd need

48000 / 10 / 34 = 141 launches per year for the life of the company.

I hope it's obvious to you that that simply would never happen. Even if OneWeb
could afford to buy that many launches, it's doubtful that Russia could
manufacture and launch them at that pace.

Even SpaceX (who is planning a similar sized constellation) can't launch their
lower cost/kg F9 twice per month, and they have the benefit of reusing the 1st
stage and fairing halves.

> The number doesn’t seem to be a problem.

The number matters if the UK cares about money.

~~~
credit_guy
You mentioned 2600 as the top range for the number of satellites needed for a
GPS system. Let's use this number, shall we?

Second, OneWeb already has bought rights for 3 launches with Ariane 6 [1];
ArianeGroup is a joint venture of Airbus and some other company. Airbus was
reported to be quite enthusiastic about the UK bid, so Soyuz is unlikely to be
in the picture for long if UK wins the auction.

An Ariane 6 launch can bring between 10 and 22 tons to LEO. Let's take the
middle number of 15 t, that would be 100 of their current satellites in one
shot. That's in line with the 60 satellites per launch for Starlink (which are
heavier at about 250kg).

They could maintain a fleet of 2600 satellites in orbit for less than 3
launches per year.

Did I mention that Airbus is the biggest OneWeb creditor? They have all the
reasons to see OneWeb succeed, so I don't think they'll limit OneWeb's access
to Arianne 6 launches. If anything, one could be worried about a conflict of
interests, that they'll get more launches than one would strictly need.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6#Launch_contracts_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6#Launch_contracts_and_scheduled_flights)

------
rjsw
Previous discussion here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297)

------
bryanlarsen
One Ars Technica comment tries to find the reasoning, postulating that this
new proposal is designed to be complementary to GPS/GNSS rather than a
replacement for it.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-
launch...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-launch-a-
full-complement-of-starlink-satellites-with-visors/?comments=1&post=39018393)

But that comment section is mostly pretty scathing.

~~~
C1sc0cat
"Classic Dom" as they say

------
tannhaeuser
Isn't it possible for the UK to re-join Galileo even when not in EU? I'd think
Galileo would be happy to get additional (paying) members.

~~~
manquer
I guess it is optics not that Galileo will not want, paying may not go well
with pro Brexit base.

------
pjc50
Corruption or incompetence? Hard to tell at the moment.

~~~
FartyMcFarter
Or both.

~~~
moomin
I mean, it's definitely corrupt, but it's hard to unstate the extent to which
the current UK government is animated by the idea that everything is easy and
you just need to think radically and differently.

As someone who favours radical and different thinking, I feel like screaming
"But you also need to be _right_!".

~~~
growlist
I seem to recall Tony Blair's Labour government making one significant foreign
policy decision that rather outweighs anything the Tories have done since, but
if you'd prefer I stick to Labour's financial incompetence I could just
mention PFI.

~~~
pjc50
139 of the 166 Tory MPs voted in favour of the war; it was a truly bipartisan
failure, on both sides of the atlantic. [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-
news/how-mp-vote-iraq-war-8...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-mp-
vote-iraq-war-8355179)

~~~
growlist
Attempting to spread the blame like that is frankly a ridiculous stunt to try
to pull - the Tory MPs weren't party to the execrable backroom shenanigans
that we are now all very well aware went on.

------
TYPE_FASTER
Two potential outcomes I can think of: 1. The UK builds ground stations and
combines timing data from OneWeb with ground station reference points to
achieve high navigation precision, 2. "You are within 1km of your destination.
For final routing instructions, join OneWeb now for the low rate of"

~~~
trhway
yes, UK can cover itself with ground stations and thus can get the high
precision on the island. That wouldn't help though to target weapons or even
to just drive ships/tanks/planes anywhere else in the world.

------
gandalfian
Built in Florida and launched from French South America on Russian rockets but
labeled British... Still if it worked the British army's annual communications
bill would probably pay for it.

------
eeh
If someone is inclined to critique this, have they considered the whole
situation, and do they have better ideas? Remain in the EU has sailed, sadly.
What do we do now?

Is it possible investing in an existing space company is the best path for the
UK to have its own GPS-like satellites?

~~~
madaxe_again
If they wanted a high resolution positioning system to cover the British
isles, it could be accomplished with an entirely ground based triangulation
network at a tiny fraction of the cost. Same principles, just cheaper, and a
smaller area covered.

~~~
eeh
Does that work with GPS chips in phones?

Does that facilitate research into space?

Does that provide continuity for existing space research/universities?

Is space research considered to be geopolitically important?

I don't know the answers to these, but I do know these decisions are beyond
arm chair critique.

~~~
Rebelgecko
>Does that work with GPS chips in phones?

I'm not super familiar with how Differential GPS works in practice, but I
believe that the common phone receivers are able to pick it up. At the very
least they're able to handle satellite based augmentations like WAAS and QZSS

------
aarong11
Non-paywall link:
[https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-e...](https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-
experts-oneweb-investment-uk-galileo-brexit) (put a . after the domain)

~~~
pmyteh
It's not a real paywall - if you hit the (fairly small) 'no thanks' button the
modal goes away without registration. Bit annoying, though.

------
pupdogg
Creative wordplay in the subtitle smells too much like bias!

~~~
dwardu
you cant expect anything less than that with the guardian. Remove all the
buzzwords they throw in and then you might be able to see the real meaning of
the article.

------
tacheiordache
But UK doesn’t need any sattelite because it is quickly becoming one itself.
Now leaving the sarcasm aside, I feel bad for British folks, the whole brexit
thing is going to be more painful than it appears to be and all kinds of
surprises like this are going to pop up. What is there to do? Maybe this
crisis will lead to a complete overhaul of the political class, maybe they do
away with the crown and all the lords too and become once for all pragmatic
and hardheaded.

------
kmlx
> the EU project that the UK helped design before losing access to due to
> Brexit

how can you lose access if you already paid for it? who negotiated this? i
assume a politician. a business person would have either asked for a cash
payment or sued.

~~~
kmlx
from another article in the more reputable FT
([https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8...](https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8e2f))

> The company, which originally intended to offer affordable internet services
> to the remotest parts of the planet, has 74 satellites in orbit and plans
> for several hundred more. OneWeb also has a significant advantage in that it
> has priority on broadcast spectrum over SpaceX’s Starlink, a rival low-earth
> satellite internet service, people close to the subject said.

In April, OneWeb approached the UK government for a £500m loan as part of a
wider $2.2bn financing from private investors. However, the government has
decided on an equity investment to preserve its influence. The company is
regulated by the UK’s Ofcom, but its management is largely American. Its
satellites are also manufactured in Florida in a joint venture with Airbus. It
has promised to repatriate manufacturing to the UK.

The government’s potential participation in a OneWeb bid has been the focus of
fierce opposition in some parts of the space industry, which had hoped to win
positions on a Galileo-style navigation project. Critics have dismissed the
low-earth technology as unproven and fraught with risk.

However, a deciding factor appears to have been support from US defence
officials who have told the government they do not want the UK to develop a
replica of the GPS system. A low-earth navigation service would complement the
US system and offer extra resilience to US allies, say several parties close
to the subject.

\----

so yeah, as always, it's actually more complicated than it seems.

this is why i usually tend to steer far away from the guardian or other
general purpose newspapers, they never offer the full picture.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>However, the government has decided on an equity investment //

Presumably a choice to invest in a private company would go through
parliamentary debate, or have public study papers. Can anyone link them?

~~~
pjc50
Good luck with that, this government is allergic to accountability. There are
three references in Hansard:
[https://hansard.parliament.uk/search?searchTerm=oneweb&parti...](https://hansard.parliament.uk/search?searchTerm=oneweb&partial=False)

\- previous reference to investing £18m in March 2019 (Chris Skidmore, under
Theresa May, mentions ESA; before the "cut all ties to Europe" moment)

\- same page
[https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-03-19/debates/E3F...](https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-03-19/debates/E3FCCEE9-CB5F-4D1A-A2E4-581F129AFE40/UKSpaceIndustry?highlight=oneweb#contribution-141ADEEB-3169-4E6A-AF13-2ADFEF1A2104)
references £92m for a "domestic alternative to Galileo", not specifically
linked to oneweb

\- Vicky Ford mentions them in the context of "my local company Teledyne e2v
is working in Leeds, where it is making the highly engineered filters,
switches and converters that are critical technology for the OneWeb group of
satellites"
[https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-01-15/debates/634...](https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-01-15/debates/634CCF88-39CE-429A-9850-FCFD5D386376/SpaceIndustryBill\(Lords\)?highlight=oneweb#contribution-C13BC628-85F4-4E36-9F87-2356B5521AA2)

\- brief namecheck from Ed Vaizey

I suspect the actual "tender" process will be resistant to FOIA under grounds
of "commercial confidentiality".

