OneWeb to Talk Constellation Altitude Spacing Issues With Senate Commerce

Increased orbital congestion is bringing with it more need for meaningful regulations on overlapping constellations, OneWeb Executive Chairman Greg Wyler said in testimony prepared for Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on satellites. Minimum altitude spacing of 125 kilometers for large-scale constellations could isolate the impact of debris from a collision, he says. The U.S. last significantly addressed space debris via regulation more than 20 years ago, and while other nations are looking at rules, the U.S. "can take a leadership position and drive standards ... worldwide," he says. The company backed updating re-entry rules that require re-entry casualties be highly unlikely, since those rules still could see large constellations dropping "tens of thousands of fragments." The company's first launch is scheduled for May, with plans to bring low-latency broadband to Alaska in 2019, followed by nationwide broadband the following year. It says its system's initial speeds will be 500 Mbps, with its subsequent constellation, scheduled for 2021, to increase that to 2.5 Gbps, and that by 2027 its goal is "fully bridging the global digital divide." Also due to testify are Intelsat, SpaceX and ViaSat executives (see 1710180056).