Of course the 'fictional' Terminator movie comes to mind, but the Brits actually have "Sky Net" I do not think it's a matter of life imitating art. Skynet was surely in development decades ago. Military technology leads commercial development, always.
Gizmodo- June 13/2008 (11 years ago)
The UK has just sent up a new communications satellite that's completed their Skynet, the highly-advanced network that's going to give them the ability to allow robotic military units at long range. You know, like in the apocalyptic vision of the future from the Terminator movies. The network's name in those movies? Skynet. Have you learned nothing, England?!
The system allows for communication both in the voice and data variety between basically any unit of the British Armed Forces, including computers talking to computers, probably about how best to murder their makers. For example, a base computer in cheery old London can communicate with the "Reaper," a robotic spy drone in Afghanistan, retrieving data and telling it where to go, and transmitting live video over the connection from the UAV. The sat also has solar sails which extend its life to 15 years, a special anti-jamming antenna is set on the receive side, while 4 steerable antennas can be aimed in a single spot to concentrate broadcasting ability.
Even worse is the fact that the whole thing is privately owned, with the British Armed Forces only promised a portion of the bandwidth rather than having control over the whole thing.
Skynet is a family of commercially managed (privately held) military communications satellites operated on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, which provide strategic communication services to the British Armed Forces and UK allies.
Say what... the whole thing is privately owned? Telesat/Google's skynet will be, as in the UK, privately held/owned/operated satellites.Privately owned and controlled satellites used by the military. Canadian. US. NATO?I'm sure they are one, perhaps the only, primary client mentioned in the article below. Telesat aims to be a star in internet space race
With plans to launch a web of almost 300 small satellites, Telesat Canada is taking on big U.S.names as it jockeys to be the leader in a race to deliver faster internet from space.The Ottawa-based company wants to build a "constellation" of satellites that would each orbit the Earth multiple times a day from about 1,000 kilometres above the planet, creating a local communications network in space that could quickly send vast amounts of data to and from users and ground stations that connect back to the broader internet.Fifty-year-old Telesat has emerged as one of the leaders in the field of low-Earth orbit, or "LEO," satellite broadband proposals.The company already has 17 satellites in geostationary orbit, which are about 36,000 kilometres above the planet and synchronized with the rotation of the Earth so they remain in a fixed position. These support satellite TV and telecommunications services, with users pointing antennas toward the satellite to receive the signals.
But its LEO plans represent a major shift in both technology and ambition for Telesat. The constellation closer to Earth would be able to carry more data with far less lag time and, in addition to doing more for key enterprise clients such as ships, airplanes and governments, the company says it could one day help address the problem of unreliable and expensive rural and remote internet access.Telesat's main rivals in the LEO race are Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk's SpaceX (the rocketlaunching company that has also started a new satellite internet operation dubbed Starlink) and OneWeb, a high-profile U.S. startup that is backed by Japan's SoftBank, owner of Sprint Corp. The trio are among about a dozen companies that have won approvals to operate LEO constellations from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, a crucial regulatory authority for any global satellite proposal."To me, we're the obvious company to tackle LEO and make it work," Telesat chief executive Dan Goldberg said in a recent interview, rattling off a list of what he sees as advantages: Telesat's long history of satellite operations and technical expertise, its understanding of different markets for the service and relationships with existing clients, its experience with regulators and its priority access to valuable spectrum (the invisible radiowaves that carry communications signals).
Finally, he said, Telesat knows how to raise money, and lots of it.
"We have a very good track record of creating equity value and a very good track record of raising billions of dollars of debt, so we're well known to the capital markets."Telesat announced two moves forward on Thursday, revealing agreements with Loon, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc., as well as Blue Origin, a spaceflight company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Loon operates a fleet of highaltitude balloons that deliver communications services, and Telesat plans to adapt Loon's network operating system for its LEO satellites. It also announced plans for multiple satellite launches on a new Blue Origin rocket expected to have its maiden flight in 2021. (Telesat says one rocket launch can carry more than 30 satellites.)
Telesat has one test satellite in orbit, plans to announce a primary contractor for its satellites later this year (it's weighing bids from Airbus and a consortium of Thales Alenia Space and Maxar Technologies Inc.) and wants to be "in service" by the end of 2022, Mr. Goldberg said.A wave of LEO satellite proposals first cropped up in the 1990s and a series of bankruptcies followed. The resurgence of such plans in the past half decade is partly because of advances in technology and lower manufacturing costs as well as the availability of key bands of spectrum, said Inigio del Portillo, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote a technical paper on LEO proposals last year.
Telesat, OneWeb and SpaceX - along with Washington, D.C.based LeoSat, which is focused solely on enterprise customers - are likely the leaders right now, Mr. del Portillo said. Smaller players have also won FCC approval, including Toronto-based Kepler Communications Inc.
In its 2018 budget, the Canadian government committed $100-million over five years to LEO projects, and Telesat has been lobbying for more. The company, along with other players in the aerospace industry, wrote a letter to Finance Minister Bill Morneau in January urging Ottawa to allocate funding to its LEO project. Telesat argues it will help Canada remain a leader in space technology and also "bridge the digital divide" by bringing high-quality internet to an estimated 4.5 million Canadians who do not currently enjoy such access.
This is being spun as providing rural internet, but, that's just PR.
Broadband access for rural and remote residents - many of whom are Indigenous - is a key promise found in most of the large LEO constellation proposals, although Mr. del Portillo is skeptical. "They always mention rural internet, but I think it's more like PR [public relations]," he said, adding that enterprise customers are likely to be the primary clients.
Skynet?Primary clients... like the military?
Since the satellites are constantly moving and handing off traffic as they pass over users, on Earth receivers need multiple antennas controlled by electronics to work.It's expensive technology and Mr. del Portillo added that it likely needs to be cheaper before consumer broadband is a viable LEO market.
Telesat said a "direct-to-consumer" model will not be its initial focus as it believes further development of low-cost terminals is necessary, but said it plans to offer service from day one that would improve network capacity for less densely populated communities through the use of data centres that would then connect to individual users using existing land-based technology.Mr. Goldberg won't comment on exactly how much the LEO plan will cost, but in the letter to Mr. Morneau, Telesat described the project as "a multi-billion dollar investment in capital and [research and development]."
Direct to consumer will not be it's initial focus.. Primary clients, as was already stated. Like the cash cow of the military? The tie in to the move to 5G seems quite obvious.Northern Truthseeker covered the 5G subject in this post -Important Health News: NO Where To Hide As Some 20000 5G Satellites To Be Launched Sending Dangerous Beams Of Intense Microwave Radiation Across The World! I'm hoping to get to some additional information posted regarding the many issues with 5G.