Page 63 - SAMENA Trends - January 2022

SATELLITE UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Argentina’s State-Owned Satellite Company to Enable Free Internet Access

Arsat, Argentina’s state-owned satellite the bidders in a process launched by the with just under 300 Meraki brand access
company, is to run a 289 million peso (about open government and digital country points. We still await a comprehensive
$2.8 million) project to provide connectivity undersecretariat, which is part of the public list of locations, though we do know that
for free internet access in towns across innovation secretariat (SIP). The site says about 28 percent of the new facilities
the country. Arsat will connect towns that that the 12-month agreement between will be located in the central region, 23
still lack access to telecommunications Arsat and SIP includes the installation percent in the city of Buenos Aires and
services in the 24 provinces of the country. of 40 VSAT antennas, 231 local access Buenos Aires province, 18 percent in the
The installation of services will be carried loops, 1584 Wi-Fi subscriptions, 120 northwest, 15 percent in Patagonia, 11
out using fiber optic, satellite/VSAT VSAT subscriptions, 1848 Wi-Fi and VSAT percent in the northeast and 5 percent in
and Wi-Fi infrastructure. News website subscriptions and 6,804 subscriptions that the Cuyo region. Arsat already operates a
bnamericas says that Arsat was among integrate terrestrial and Wi-Fi links, along nearly 32,000-metre fibre optic wholesale
network, while its geostationary satellites
ARSAT-1 and ARSAT-2 offer coverage in
Argentina and the entire Americas. The
planned third satellite in the fleet, ARSAT-
SG1, will become the first national satellite
to operate in the Ka-band. This is not the
only major win for the state-owned satellite
company this year. Last week Arsat
reported thar it had received approval and
funding for a satcoms and cellular-based
IoT service for asset tracking.

Russia’s Sphere Satellite Constellation Moves Towards Implementation

After several stages of discussions and approvals in the industries. “Nevertheless, all this time Roscosmos continued
government, the Federal Sphere project received a development to develop and promote the frontal development strategy of
plan supported by funding. In the coming years, emphasis will be the State Corporation, which is based on the Sphere project. In
placed on developing technologies and creating the first samples general, the upcoming three-year stage of the “Sphere” can be
of spacecraft. The final decision on the number and composition called preparatory: within its framework, various technologies will
of satellite constellations will be made based on the results shown. be tested and prototypes of equipment will be manufactured. It
The pandemic and the need to address priority state tasks have depends on the results of the stage, along which path the process
made certain adjustments to the plans for the implementation of mass production and deployment of groupings in orbits will
of the federal project “Sphere”. The creation of a national multi- go. With all the changes, the main idea of the project – space for
satellite constellation of communications and Earth remote humans – remains the same. Sphere is one of the key projects of
sensing (ERS) will continue, but the process will be phased and Roscosmos aimed at developing space information technologies
more variable. Behind the long – over two years – coordination and eliminating the so-called digital inequality. Thanks to
in the federal executive bodies. “After we presented the project it, the most modern communication and monitoring system
to the government for the last time, a number of meetings were will be created, including both the existing and future space
held, including with the Ministry of Finance, under the leadership infrastructure. A significant part of the territory of our country is
of Deputy Prime Minister for the Defense Industry Complex Yuri located in high latitudes, where the population density is low, and
Borisov, as well as under the leadership of the President. As a the zones of taiga, tundra and permafrost interfere with the laying
result, the Ministry of Finance provided funding for priority work of fiber-optic communication networks. In such places, satellites
on the Sphere project – 7 billion rubles [US $92.47 million] for this will help to provide a full range of telecommunication services for
year [2021] and another 7 billion [US $92.47 million] annually from stationary and mobile objects. It is planned to achieve these goals
2022 to 2024,” Sergey Prokhorov, Director of the Department of by deploying groups with Yamal and Express communication
Prospective Programs and the SFERA Project, told Russian Space. satellites in geostationary and Express-RV in highly elliptical
The top manager of Roscosmos believes that a combination of orbits, with SKIF broadband Internet access devices in medium
circumstances had an effect: “Recently, there have been several orbits and satellites to provide the Internet of things. Earth
well-known events that have entailed colossal government observation in various wavelength ranges will be conducted by
spending. This is both a pandemic, the consequences of which the constellations of the SMOTR, Berkut-O, Berkut-VD, Berkut-X
affected the socio-economic situation in the country, and and Berkut-XLP spacecraft. As a result, integrated services will
sanctions, which affected a number of Russian enterprises and develop for the growth of all sectors of the country’s economy.

63 JANUARY 2022