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<\/p>\nIt wants its own satellite internet network.<\/p>\n
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Rocket Lab \/ Iridium<\/p>\n
These days, it’s not enough to own a company that sends things up into space; you also need to own the things you’re sending up. Rocket Lab<\/a>, one of the smaller names in the private spaceflight<\/a> sector, has today announced<\/a> it’s buying Iridium Communications in a deal worth $8 billion. In essence, it’s an attempt to buy the capacity it needs to go toe-to-toe with SpaceX’s ever-growing Starlink network.\u00a0If all the regulatory hurdles are cleared, Rocket Lab will own Iridium’s network of 80 satellites, which connect some of the\u00a0most remote<\/a>\u00a0locations on Earth, as well as its wireless spectrum.<\/p>\n If the name Iridium rings a distant bell, it’s because it’s the company Qualcomm partnered with to bring satellite texting to Android devices. Qualcomm dreamt up Snapdragon Satellite<\/a> as an alternative to Apple’s space-based emergency SOS feature. Sadly, the program was scuttled in 2023<\/a> after phone manufacturers turned their noses up at the plan, and the only mainstream handsets with satellite connectivity are the Pixel 9 series.<\/p>\n The growing adoption of Starlink and SpaceX’s mad valuation have led plenty of its would-be rivals to buy in extra capacity. Back in April, Amazon announced a “merger” between its Leo satellite internet service and Globalstar<\/a>, which provides the satellite backbone for Apple’s emergency SOS service.<\/p>\n In a statement, Rocket Lab<\/a> said the deal would give it an “immediate foothold” in various space-based markets. That includes direct device communications and internet of things networks, as well as global positioning, navigation and timing services<\/a> for major infrastructure providers. Rocket Lab will also likely see benefits for the various military satellite contracts it services. And while Iridium’s network hasn’t grown for a while due to its financial troubles, Rocket Lab is committing to “build upon it to scale into untapped markets and pioneer new space-based services to the benefit of global customers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wants its own satellite internet network.
Rocket Lab \/ Iridium These days, it’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-516750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}