Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Happy Memorial Day everyone.
In this issue:
Astranis’ novel approach to GEO satellites
Virgin Galactic’s return to the skies
News from SpaceX, and more
Astranis, a satellite internet startup based in San Francisco, said Wednesday that its first spacecraft completed a milestone test and will start bringing broadband access to rural Alaskans as soon as mid-June.
It’s a major step for the company, which was founded in 2015 by John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko. By taking a first principles approach to satellite development, the pair bet that they could make a smaller, cheaper spacecraft for geosynchronous orbit — the orbit farthest from Earth and arguably the most inhospitable — and use them to bring internet to millions, or even billions, of people around the …
