Progress by technology companies gets less public exposure than setbacks — particularly in the UK. So you might have missed OneWeb’s recent satellite launches. These should give the company, rescued from bankruptcy by the UK government in 2020, global coverage for its internet service later this year.
Satellite internet is one reason analysts are bullish on space industries, despite such flops as the bankruptcy of Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, a satellite launch business. The technology has the potential to connect a disadvantaged one-third of the world’s population.
OneWeb has a fight on its hands. The low-earth orbit (LEO) business is dominated by Starlink, a venture of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. This has more than 3,500 satellites, compared with 618 for OneWeb. Amazon is hoping to catch up via Project Kuiper, which has yet to put its hardware aloft.