Britain needs a new arm of the RAF to stop China and Russia colonising space
...who’ll launch 34 satellites every MONTH – and beam broadband across Britain
WHEN Neil Armstrong took that small first step on the Moon 50 years ago, his ‘ giant leap for mankind’ was described as a breathtaking triumph for the human spirit.
As a grinning President Nixon said in a phone call to the astronauts: ‘For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.’
There was rather more to it than that, of course. Indeed, the 1969 Moon landing was a clear statement of economic and military power at the height of the Cold War, a decisive move in the Space Race between America and Russia, and one that had swallowed billions of dollars.
Nixon went on to say this: ‘Because of what you have done, the heavens have become part of man’s world.’ And how prescient he was. Thanks to the relentless march of ever cheaper, more advanced technology, dozens of countries now have space programmes.
The result is a 21st Century Space Race, with many more players and an ever- growing possibility that the satellite technology we all rely on for the internet, smartphones, GPS and defence could be brought crashing down around our ears.
In the absence of agreed rules, and with dozens of state and private-sector operators competing, it’s getting very busy up there. And some political agendas are decidedly opaque.
China, for example, has joined the Space Race with a worrying bang. In 2007, it shot a missile at a redundant weather satellite, breaking it into hundreds of pieces, many of which can be tracked as space debris even today.
Beijing has invested huge sums in space ports, rockets, human flight, satellite networks and space stations. It is believed China’s annual space budget is at least half of Nasa’s $17 billion a year, and the investment is already paying dividends.
EARLIER this year, China became the first to land on the far side of the Moon which, because it never faces the Earth, is well beyond the scrutiny of international eyes. In the West, the current impetus is commercial. But as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson compete to send tourists into space, Russia and China have more clandestine intentions. Space is the ideal vantage point to observe, confuse, blind, deafen or even kill your enemy below.
Ronald Reagan’s much-derided Star Wars initiative of the 1970s may have been far in advance of the existing technology, but that technology is no longer the stuff of science fiction – and it is high time Britain woke up.
Satellites are so integral to civilian, commercial, and military life that a total or partial loss of use would i mpact our l i ves both instantly and dramatically, destroying our ability to communicate, share information, conduct transactions, use the internet, fly planes or predict the weather.
Loss of the Global Positioning System (GPS) would cripple navigation and cause synchronisation
problems across all modern industries, because of the loss of its role regulating computerised clocks and ‘ universal time’ – vital for everything, from machining, electricity production, food distribution and financial transactions. Without GPS, our military would lose sight of both enemy and friendly forces, as well as rendering unmanned vehicles, smart missiles and earlywarning systems useless.
In military terms, space has become the ultimate ‘high ground’ that brings dominance over the land below. Both Russia and China now regard space as a fighting domain, and are even creating aerospace forces. Russia’s MiG-31 fighter, which can fly 15.5 miles above the Earth, will soon be armed with anti-satellite missiles.
Since the Cold War, Russia has been developing a range of weapons systems with varying levels of success, including orbiting space stations armed with cannons, direct energy weapons using high-power microwaves or lasers, and also kamikaze- style satellites, which can be instructed to destroy those belonging to the enemy.
It is now creating subtler space weapons, which can covertly damage a rival country’s satellites, thus creating economic chaos and political instability.
Attacks could be extremely difficult to trace. A laser weapon, for example, could be used to damage optical sensors on a rival satellite, ‘blinding’ it and thereby rendering it useless, but with no sign of who was responsible.
China’s intentions are also raising eyebrows. Beijing says its far-side lunar landing was for the benefit of all of humanity, but it is clear it has intentions to robotically mine mineral elements that are in short supply here on Earth.
The Moon is a potential treasuretrove of priceless resources, including helium-3, which is found in the lunar soil and is a potential future energy source for further space exploration. The lunar poles are suspected to contain sub-surface ice. Would China share this precious, life- sustaining asset with other lunar missions?
It is important that our Government acts, and quickly.
Firstly, we must develop resilient systems that enable early detection of satellite disruption and effectively deal with the aftermath. Given how dependent we have become on space services, this is also in our commercial interests.
We already have the expertise. The £400 billion space industry is one of the fastest- growing economic sectors, with British companies responsible for about ten per cent of global turnover. Furthermore, one in four telecoms satellites contains British components.
SECONDLY, this political intent must be backed by increased defence spending. As current tensions in the Strait o f Ho r mu z starkly illustrate, our defence budget is struggling to cope with present-day threats.
If we are to expand our defensive capabilities to deal with tomorrow’s cyber and space threats, we must increase defence spending towards three per cent of GDP over the life of Parliament.
This would take us from £40 billion to £60 billion, but because it would include investment in our industrial base, it would be economically viable. We spent four per cent of GDP on defence in the Cold War.
At today’s levels of spending, the UK will soon be overtaken by France and Germany. America, in comparison, spends £538 billion.
Thirdly, we must join France and the US in creating a UK Space Command to sit under the umbrella of the RAF, enhancing our ability to monitor hostile activity, defend our space assets and, if necessary, launch attacks.
This new command would send a powerful message to friend and foe alike that Britain’s hard- earned reputation of stepping forward on the international stage as a force for good is set to continue in this new technological age.
Finally, Britain has the global reach and reputation for defending the rule of law to lead a crucial international debate on setting new rules for space.
As Neil Armstrong suggested 50 years ago, space should be a global endeavour that benefits all mankind. This new age of exploration demands wise leadership, collaboration and, critically, enforceable governance. Britain should be helping to shape the new rules of space before it’s too late. Failure could be catastrophic for all of us.
Space is the ideal vantage point to observe, confuse, blind, deafen or even kill an enemy below
ADRIAN STECKEL does not seem like someone you would put your money on in a space race against billionaire rocketmen Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The chief executive of British internet satellite company OneWeb does not sport a rock star leather jacket, nor lead a luxury lifestyle. And he has not harboured dreams of voyaging to space since he was a child.
‘I could see how space travel would be very appealing,’ says t he 52-year-old New Yorkborn businessman with a wry smile, hinting at the ambitions of his brash rivals.
Musk, the serial entrepreneur behind electric car company Tesla, has boasted about planning to colonise Mars. Amazon boss Bezos – the world’s richest man – wants to build hotels in space.
But appearances can be deceptive. In fact, Steckel is leading both Bezos and Musk in a scramble into space to connect the most remote parts of the world to the internet.
There are still 3.8 billion people in the world without broadband – mainly in Africa but also in parts of developed nations such as Britain.
In some of these areas, people have internet access that is so slow they can barely send an email. Others have no access at all.
That is where OneWeb, Bezos’s Amazon and Musk’s SpaceX have spotted a major opportunity. They plan to send satellites into space and send internet messages down via a combination of radio waves and laser technology to places that do not have broadband cables in the ground.
Firms such as BT have been reluctant to spend billions laying cables in hard-to-reach areas because they stand to gain so few extra customers that it rarely makes financial sense.
In theory, people in remote places could connect to the internet directly via giant satellites stationed high above the Equator – cutting out the need for a cable network altogether. However, these satellites are positioned 22,000 miles above the Earth, making it almost impossible to get a decent connection.
So OneWeb and its rivals are launching thousands of much smaller ‘low Earth orbit’ satellites to provide the crucial missing link. They will be much closer to the ground( about 750 miles in OneWeb’s case) and circle the planet at high speed, communicating with the giant satellites using laser technology and then sending down messages to homes and cars
We’ll immediately become the biggest telecoms company in the world
Our factory cost hundreds of millions. It’s the Henry Ford assembly line idea
over radio waves. The end result will be that someone in a remote rural location will have access to exactly the same uninterrupted internet connection as those in city centres – but without the need for expensive cables or phone masts.
‘Instead of being on a pole or a tower, our base stations are in the sky,’ says Steckel.
Musk’s SpaceX has al r eady launched around 60 satellites, with more planned by the end of the year. Amazon is awaiting approval to send up more than 3,200 satellites. So Steckel knows he needs to move fast. ‘Three or four major telco players is an ideal number and there are really three companies right now making noise about doing this,’ Steckel says, before showing a competitive streak: ‘We’ll be the first one to launch and immediately we’ll become the biggest telecoms company in the world by geographic area.’
That prospect is now just two years away, he reveals.
Ultimately, the big market for OneWeb – which is based in London and also has a control centre in the US state of Virginia – is seen as Africa where most people who can connect to the internet do so on their phones. Closer to home, northern Scotland is one of a handful of areas that will get a limited service from next year. A full service is expected to be launched in two years’ time. Once up and running, OneWeb aims to partner with operators such as BT and Virgin which have ‘boots on the ground’.
‘We’ll work through distributors in the UK and in other places where they will go and install it on your house,’ Steckel explains. ‘ You won’t be getting the service directly from us.
‘The service will be much, much better and competitive with the pricing that you get in that area. It may not be the cut-throat offer that you get in Central London, but it will be an acceptable offer.’ Giving a ballpark figure, he said it could be £100 a month for speeds of up to 200 Mbps. The current average UK broadband speed in urban areas is 54.2 Mbps – and far slower in the countryside – so the satellite service will be far superior.
OneWeb is making rapid progress, Steckel reveals. In February, it fired six satellites into orbit and the company is now churning out two a day at its newly-opened factory in Florida. At the end of this year, the company will start sending up 34 satellites every month to create the ‘largest constellation in space’. By 2022, it should have nearly 2,000 orbiting the Earth at high speed. Steckel describes the satellites as ‘big fridges with arms’ weighing 330 pounds and costing just £830,000 to build, compared with hundreds of millions of pounds for each giant satellite.
He sees no significant threat to OneWeb’s business model from 5G – the new high-speed mobile internet which launched in the UK this year to much fanfare.
Steckel explains that while 5G offers instant connections and very high speeds, it is not suited to rural areas because the signal does not travel long distances. For it to work, providers would have to install vast numbers of small boxes fitted with radio equipment near homes, which would be impractical.
‘We want to connect the unconnected,’ Steckel says. ‘That’s why lots of people invested in this company and lots of people came to work for us.’
The list of names backing OneWeb is like a Who’s Who of heavyweight investors. It includes Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin, Airbus, CocaCol a a nd American computer chip giant Qualcomm. They have already injected a combined £2.8 billion into the sevenyear-old company, making it one of Britain’s most highly valued startups – although Steckel declines to disclose the actual valuation.
Being funded by SoftBank, which owns half the company and is led by the eccentric Masayoshi Son, should help Steckel in the race to beat Bezos and Musk to market. Steckel says Masa, as he is fondly known, ‘ thinks big’ and he has weekly calls with SoftBank to update them on progress, especially at the firm’s plant in Florida.
‘ That factory represents hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and a total change of the process of making satellites. It’s the Henry Ford assembly line idea. If you want to get your costs down, i t can’t be an artisanal approach.’
Taking on Bezos and Musk might sound a daunting prospect, but Steckel – who was parachuted into his post last year – has faced challenges before. At his previous firm, Mexican telecoms company Grupo Salinas, he built fibre networks in Peru and Colombia where the company was ‘laying fibre through the jungle, where there was guerrilla action’. He adds: ‘In the Andes, you had to go through the mountains and mudslides. Not an easy thing.’
Steckel is also busy laying the groundwork for a blockbuster stock market listing.
‘We certainly do have a long-term plan. I’m sure we will be listed and the appropriate time is probably when we start giving service – in 24 to 36 months from now.’ In London or New York? ‘That’s a level of specificity I don’t have,’ he grins.
A float in London could catapult OneWeb into the ranks of the FTSE 100. The new space race is well and truly on.