The LEO companies have all gone bankrupt because of the incredible expense in putting up dozens of birds before getting a nickle in revenue.
You make good points, Cobalt, but launch costs, IMO, are not the biggest problem for LEOs. LEO launch costs, last I checked, were about $5k/pound, 50% or so cheaper than GEO. And at LEO you can get by with smaller satellites due lower power requirements, smaller antennas, etc. Plus you can pack several satellites on the same vehicle, so the overall launch savings are considerable, perhaps 2-3 times cheaper than large GEO satellites. The big ticket item for a LEO constellation is its care and feeding, i.e., active tracking, telemetry, and control, as well as the ground entry points and terrestrial network needed to provide the down and up links for near-real time comm.
I was very much of a skeptic with Iridium, because I could not see a break even at much under $10 per minute. Couldn't get many on that board to listen to my case, so I left it. Made the same point with Globalstar, with the same results. I think the most cost-effective concept is ORBCOMM, a message-based system, but I don't know if it can compete with land-based cellular or GEO services, for the same reasons, and the reasons you have pointed out. There is also the problem that circular LEO orbits necessarily spend most of their time over the oceans and other unpopulated regions. Wonder whatever happened to Ellipso? |
