36 ms·

'We've bought the wrong satellites': UK tech gamble baffles experts

211 points by DanBC 6y ago

pupdogg 6y ago
Creative wordplay in the subtitle smells too much like bias!
- dwardu 6y ago
  you cant expect anything less than that with the guardian. Remove all the buzzwords they throw in and then you might be able to see the real meaning of the article.
rjsw 6y ago
Previous discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297
pjc50 6y ago
Corruption or incompetence? Hard to tell at the moment.
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  Or both.
  - moomin 6y ago
    I mean, it's definitely corrupt, but it's hard to unstate the extent to which the current UK government is animated by the idea that everything is easy and you just need to think radically and differently. As someone who favours radical and different thinking, I feel like screaming "But you also need to be _right_!".
    - lilSebastian 6y ago
      They have a track record of not listening to scientists.
    - leadingthenet 6y ago
      ...and competent enough to execute on it.
    - Nexxxeh 6y ago
      They're definitely right of centre, if that's any help? Their decisions are almost all ideology and spin over practicality. Or, as is presently being demonstrated by Jenrick, just wholeheartedly corrupt.
    - danjac 6y ago
      The current lot remind me of every terrible tech-illiterate manager or client who uses phrases like "it's got to be easy..." or "you only have to...". Cummings is the worst case, the manager who has learned just enough to consider himself an expert but not enough to realize how out of his depth he really is.
      - craftinator 6y ago
        Reminds me of Rise of the Expert Beginner: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      And think things through - bring Back Steve¡Bong! or Nathen Barley I say. Steve¡Bong! was a satirical invention of The Register for those who are unfamiliar
    - growlist 6y ago
      I seem to recall Tony Blair's Labour government making one significant foreign policy decision that rather outweighs anything the Tories have done since, but if you'd prefer I stick to Labour's financial incompetence I could just mention PFI.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    (not specific to this case) It's so often both in some ratio. The worst combination is largely corrupt and incompetent leading to people causing massive damages for small personal profit.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Well maybe if we had supported our local high tech businesses better the UK would be self sufficient and if Martlesham / Marconi had been better manged we would have our own 5g tech.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Marconi used to be a pretty impressive company - I used to know some people from the team that worked on nuclear power station simulators and they were all pretty smart! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like their senior management were quite so smart: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver.observerbusiness https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver...
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    Here's a story from 2012 about how the Fore management recalls the history of the company, complete with words like "tech superstars" and "multibillion dollar success". https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-founders-reunite-for-evening.html https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-...
    - arethuza 6y ago
      Well, you have to congratulate the management team at FORE - they even pointed out that ATM might be on the way out during the acquisition process and Marconi still bought them.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Are the GEC/Marconi management out of work and destitute now? I'm going to guess they got multimillion pay packets and that the personal cost to themselves was probably negative (ie they made money) but would be interested to hear otherwise.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      "out of work and destitute" Does being in the House of Lords for a while count? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Simpson,_Baron_Simpson_of_Dunkeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Simpson,_Baron_Simpson_...
aarong11 6y ago
Non-paywall link: https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-experts-oneweb-investment-uk-galileo-brexit https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-e... (put a . after the domain)
- pmyteh 6y ago
  It's not a real paywall - if you hit the (fairly small) 'no thanks' button the modal goes away without registration. Bit annoying, though.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
There was never a actual will to develop a competitor to Galileo/GPS. This a political tactic for Brexit. This is still for the show. This will die out at some point.
- maltelandwehr 6y ago
  If they make the investment, it is more than just show. But I have my doubts about the end result of this endeavor as well.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    It's a proposed investment in a bankrupt company, and apparently not the most suited one. We'll see...
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    This is essentially a PR-only government run by a disgraced racist former journalist who has no extended attention span, no useful real-life skills, and nothing but contempt for STEM culture - but also believes that he's intelligent enough to talk his way out of any situation. Expecting anything other than wasted money and failure is an exercise in unrealistic optimism.
    - bennyelv 6y ago
      Ten years ago if you'd predicted that trump would be in the White House and Johnson would be in No 10, you would have been laughed at... Nobody's laughing now because the reality isn't funny.
      - dillonmckay 6y ago
        Governing and campaigning are very different things, though. What is the difference in effort between ‘selling’ a $15k website or application versus writing, maintaining and deploying said application?
kmlx 6y ago
> the EU project that the UK helped design before losing access to due to Brexit how can you lose access if you already paid for it? who negotiated this? i assume a politician. a business person would have either asked for a cash payment or sued.
- maltelandwehr 6y ago
  They did not „already pay for it“. Think of the EU like a gym. Only because the gym bought a treadmill with your membership fees from last year, does not mean you get to keep access to that treadmill once you decide to terminate your gym membership.
  - kmlx 6y ago
    what if i was also involved in scoping out the requirements for that purchase and/or also involved in designing certain features? i think we can all agree the EU is pretty far away from the concept of a gym. when't the last time your gym imposed rules that had a direct consequence on your life?
    - Someone 6y ago
      For most members of a gym, I guess that would be today. Most gyms require members to abide by various coronavirus-triggered regulations (including, in quite a few countries, the rule “don’t enter the gym”)
    - dillonmckay 6y ago
      Like closing for a pandemic?
    - moomin 6y ago
      Try skinny-dipping in the pool sometime.
- kmlx 6y ago
  from another article in the more reputable FT (https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8e2f https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8...) > The company, which originally intended to offer affordable internet services to the remotest parts of the planet, has 74 satellites in orbit and plans for several hundred more. OneWeb also has a significant advantage in that it has priority on broadcast spectrum over SpaceX’s Starlink, a rival low-earth satellite internet service, people close to the subject said. In April, OneWeb approached the UK government for a £500m loan as part of a wider $2.2bn financing from private investors. However, the government has decided on an equity investment to preserve its influence. The company is regulated by the UK’s Ofcom, but its management is largely American. Its satellites are also manufactured in Florida in a joint venture with Airbus. It has promised to repatriate manufacturing to the UK. The government’s potential participation in a OneWeb bid has been the focus of fierce opposition in some parts of the space industry, which had hoped to win positions on a Galileo-style navigation project. Critics have dismissed the low-earth technology as unproven and fraught with risk. However, a deciding factor appears to have been support from US defence officials who have told the government they do not want the UK to develop a replica of the GPS system. A low-earth navigation service would complement the US system and offer extra resilience to US allies, say several parties close to the subject. ---- so yeah, as always, it's actually more complicated than it seems. this is why i usually tend to steer far away from the guardian or other general purpose newspapers, they never offer the full picture.
donatj 6y ago
> intended to mitigate the UK’s loss of access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system. I thought Galileo was an open system? Quoting Wikipedia “ The EU's stance is that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and everyone.”
- Tomte 6y ago
  Everyone can use it, but Galileo is also a program to fund and support EU companies. British companies won't receive any orders for producing the satellites and other technology anymore. So the Johnson government is looking for ways to generate orders for British companies, as well. [edit: changed "their own" to British", because readers might misread it as "companies owned by government officials"]
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    >[edit: changed "their own" to British", because readers might misread it as "companies owned by government officials"] Perhaps not owned by government officials, but Cummings' pals are certainly getting a lot of government contracts without proper tendering recently...
- tialaramex 6y ago
  All the GNSS systems have a mixture of services intended for the general public and so keys are public - and systems for which the keys needed aren't public. Most of them (e.g. GPS) say the non-public keys are for the military, since the EU does not have a military it says these keys are for "Public regulated services" and highlights that Galileo is ostensibly 100% civilian. The UK won't have access to PRS service from Galileo. It isn't entitled to equivalent access to GPS, and obviously not to GLONASS or Beidou. So rather than say "We're a small unimportant island so that's fine" our government feels it absolutely must have equivalent capability.
  - hannibalhorn 6y ago
    I'm ignorant on the topic, but I'm really surprised the US wouldn't share that "equivalent access" to GPS with the UK? Certainly seems like we'd be happy to sell such access to a close ally for less than the $600+ million investment referenced here...
bryanlarsen 6y ago
One Ars Technica comment tries to find the reasoning, postulating that this new proposal is designed to be complementary to GPS/GNSS rather than a replacement for it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-launch-a-full-complement-of-starlink-satellites-with-visors/?comments=1&post=39018393 https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-launch... But that comment section is mostly pretty scathing.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  "Classic Dom" as they say
eeh 6y ago
If someone is inclined to critique this, have they considered the whole situation, and do they have better ideas? Remain in the EU has sailed, sadly. What do we do now? Is it possible investing in an existing space company is the best path for the UK to have its own GPS-like satellites?
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  If they wanted a high resolution positioning system to cover the British isles, it could be accomplished with an entirely ground based triangulation network at a tiny fraction of the cost. Same principles, just cheaper, and a smaller area covered.
  - eeh 6y ago
    Does that work with GPS chips in phones? Does that facilitate research into space? Does that provide continuity for existing space research/universities? Is space research considered to be geopolitically important? I don't know the answers to these, but I do know these decisions are beyond arm chair critique.
    - dathinab 6y ago
      Also less know: GPS can be used as an additional "highish" precision clock source for servers. It works based on the device having known GPS position and knowledge that the position didn't change at all. EDIT: This as far as I know also applies to other GPS like systems.
    - Rebelgecko 6y ago
      >Does that work with GPS chips in phones? I'm not super familiar with how Differential GPS works in practice, but I believe that the common phone receivers are able to pick it up. At the very least they're able to handle satellite based augmentations like WAAS and QZSS
  - dathinab 6y ago
    The problem is the British sea. If it's just the land mass it's really not a supper big problem. It's still kinda big as devices would need to specially manufactured for their system, which can drive costs up.
xondono 6y ago
Whatever the incentives were, I actually prefer this choice to the alternatives. This project (like Galileo) is about subsidizing the space sector first, and application is a distant 34th. I'd rather see the money flowing to people trying new stuff that to stablished companies building the same old systems.
- hyko 6y ago
  I the UK really wanted blue sky thinking, why not open up a competition?
  - Gravityloss 6y ago
    Biggest beneficiary from Galileo (during Britain's stain in the EU) was actually a small UK satellite company, Surrey Satellite Technology.
- manquer 6y ago
  Galileo had SST( a British company) building a lot of the components . OneWeb only has a official HQ in the U.K and is just an operator, I don't any development happens in the U.K and was largely done by Airbus. Perhaps it can change in the future, however given OneWeb's uncertain future post their bankruptcy I am not sure this investment is the best way to promote the space sector.
  - xondono 6y ago
    I’m not saying it’s a good bet. I’m saying that if you are going to throw the money out the window anyway, throwing it at new stuff is a much more promising heuristic (even if in this particular case it’s a bad move)
CraigJPerry 6y ago
Seems reasonable at first glance to me: 1a. satellite company with products goes bust 1b. Government wants different type of satellite but prohibitively expensive to pursue 2. Govt speculates in 1a in order to reduce cost of 1b What’s the smoking gun i missed?
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  You need a truck to move a container of freight across the country. You buy a skateboard, hoping that you can modify it to do the job.
  - echotango 6y ago
    analogies are not evidence
- pjc50 6y ago
  Lack of tender process? Equity investment into already-bankrupt company? Not actually a manufacturer but operator? (the actual manufacturer appears to be Airbus: https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/15/oneweb-selects-airbus-to-build-900-internet-satellites/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/15/oneweb-selects-airbus-... ) Track record of Brexit snap procurements that turned out to be total losses? e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/brexit-ferry-fiasco-could-be-repeated-mps-warn https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/brexit-ferr... Ongoing Johnson/Desmond corruption allegations? Leave it a few weeks and someone will find which Tory party donor was tied to this firm.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
Isn't it possible for the UK to re-join Galileo even when not in EU? I'd think Galileo would be happy to get additional (paying) members.
- manquer 6y ago
  I guess it is optics not that Galileo will not want, paying may not go well with pro Brexit base.
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
Two potential outcomes I can think of: 1. The UK builds ground stations and combines timing data from OneWeb with ground station reference points to achieve high navigation precision, 2. "You are within 1km of your destination. For final routing instructions, join OneWeb now for the low rate of"
- trhway 6y ago
  yes, UK can cover itself with ground stations and thus can get the high precision on the island. That wouldn't help though to target weapons or even to just drive ships/tanks/planes anywhere else in the world.
d_silin 6y ago
I'd like to note that it is feasible to reuse current OneWeb satellite as ad-hoc GNSS, just the accuracy will be much worse than current service from Galileo or GPS
- gchadwick 6y ago
  This is the point I'd really like to see some more detail on or discussion on from relevant experts. I'm sure you can build some kind of GNSS with the capabilities of OneWeb satellites, can you build something with similar capabilities to existing GNSS (GPS was original designed in the 70s so was designed with receivers with limited computational capability, with modern capabilities can you build a system that requires lots more satellites for a good fix, where those satellites don't need the same capabilities as a GPS satellite for instance)? If not do you need small tweaks to OneWeb's current platform or a total overhaul to build a GNSS? I can well believe the UK government has been sold on a thing that can't work, but equally I can see reasons it may be possible to use OneWorld's existing platform for a GNSS service.
  - dr_orpheus 6y ago
    One of the biggest drivers of cost on GNSS satellites is the need for an extremely accurate clock. Position is calculated based on a series of ranges to the satellites with a "known" position. That range is calculated is based on a time-of-flight so you need a very accurate time source. The whole Galileo project cost is 10 billion [0] and this is "cheap" compared to the US GPS system. I can't find great numbers for it, but for the cost of building two new GPS satellites this year is $1.8 billion [1] and operating cost for the existing constellation I believe is on the order of 100s of millions. I know someone could probably do it for cheaper, but I guess my point is putting an atomic clock in space is expensive. But I also wanted to come back to the cost of operations and "known" satellite position. Because if you need your GPS satellites to have good enough position and time knowledge you need something on the ground with a better than extremely accurate clock. See this picture of the backup clock arriving at the GPS operations center [2] Edit: Also see my comment a couple comments down on my assessment of possible accuracy of the current one-web satellites to get an idea of accuracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) [1] https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2079489/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2021-budget-proposal/ https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/20... [2] https://www.schriever.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/276171/new-alternate-master-clock-arrives-at-schriever/ https://www.schriever.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/27...
Wistar 6y ago
I can't help but hear "We've bought the wrong satellites" in Peter Sallis's voice: "Woah! It's the wrong satellites Grommit, and they've gone wrong!"
- TLightful 6y ago
  Hah. I can't get Michael Caine's voice out of my head ... "We've only gone and bought the wrong bloody satellites" Our Government is a laughing stock ... It'll probably take a generation to recover from this mess.
dr_orpheus 6y ago
I think this is so ironic given that a company in the UK manufactures the navigation payloads for the Galileo satellites https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/featured/navigation https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/featured/navigation
tacheiordache 6y ago
But UK doesn’t need any sattelite because it is quickly becoming one itself. Now leaving the sarcasm aside, I feel bad for British folks, the whole brexit thing is going to be more painful than it appears to be and all kinds of surprises like this are going to pop up. What is there to do? Maybe this crisis will lead to a complete overhaul of the political class, maybe they do away with the crown and all the lords too and become once for all pragmatic and hardheaded.
gandalfian 6y ago
Built in Florida and launched from French South America on Russian rockets but labeled British... Still if it worked the British army's annual communications bill would probably pay for it.
credit_guy 6y ago
Ugh, where do I start? The UK did not buy any satellites. They bought a stake in a satellite company. Actually, they didn't do that either, they submitted a bid to buy a stake in a satellite company. The bid will be reviewed, and after it's approved by the US, they may win it. Once they have the stake, the satellite company, OneWeb, may build for the UK some satellites for a new global positioning system, or they may build some other satellite capabilities. If they go for the first one, they can build satellites at the same altitude as the ones they have placed in orbit so far (1200 km), or at a different altitude. If they place them at the 1200km altitude, it's not clear at all why this would be bad, except that some self-declared experts pointed out that the current GPS satellites are at a higher altitude.
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > If they place them at the 1200km altitude, it's not clear at all why this would be bad, except that some self-declared experts pointed out that the current GPS satellites are at a higher altitude. The main downside of this is that you typically need more satellites. If I recall, you need a minimum of 4 satellites to get a position, and more is beneficial. With modern atomic clocks and other trappings, that could get expensive.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    Actually, modern atomic clocks should be less expensive, not more expensive than the ones produced 30 years ago that power the original GPS satellites. For example, chip-scale atomic clocks [1] can be had for about $1000 [2]. Here's a space rated such atomic clock [3]. I couldn't find the cost, but let's say it's one hundred times more expensive than a "civilian" version. It's still negligible even compared to the cost of putting the satellite in orbit only. Speaking of which, this calculator [4] shows me that with the same rocket, going from an altitude of 1000km to 20000km cuts the cargo mass roughly in half. And another difference between 20000km and 1000km is the fact that radio signals decay with the square of the distance. At 20000 km you need an antenna that's 400 times more powerful than at 1000km. That means you need correspondingly more solar panels and more radiators. Overall, the satellite will be many, many times heavier. For example the GPS satellite USA-132 currently in service has a mass of 2 tons [5]. If the lower orbit affords you a mass reduction not by a factor of 400, but only by a factor of 10, you end up with 200 kg. The current OneWeb satellites weigh about 150kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-scale_atomic_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-scale_atomic_clock [2] https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article/21806867/cant-afford-an-atomic-clock-get-a-molecular-one https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article... [3] https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-frequency-references/5207-space-csac#overview https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-... [4] https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-injection-calculator.htm https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-injection-... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mopsi 6y ago
On a side note: it's the first time I see a Putinbot on HN. If you've ever read about Russian troll farms, then user gdy in this thread is pretty much copy-pasting their standard talking points ("encirceled" Russia, NATO warmongers, Baltic Nazis and other memes). Reddit became flooded with them years ago, I'm surprised HN took them this long.

211 points by DanBC 6y ago

pupdogg 6y ago

Creative wordplay in the subtitle smells too much like bias!

dwardu 6y ago
you cant expect anything less than that with the guardian. Remove all the buzzwords they throw in and then you might be able to see the real meaning of the article.

rjsw 6y ago

Previous discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23654297

pjc50 6y ago

Corruption or incompetence? Hard to tell at the moment.

FartyMcFarter 6y ago
Or both.
- moomin 6y ago
  I mean, it's definitely corrupt, but it's hard to unstate the extent to which the current UK government is animated by the idea that everything is easy and you just need to think radically and differently. As someone who favours radical and different thinking, I feel like screaming "But you also need to be _right_!".
  - lilSebastian 6y ago
    They have a track record of not listening to scientists.
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    ...and competent enough to execute on it.
  - Nexxxeh 6y ago
    They're definitely right of centre, if that's any help? Their decisions are almost all ideology and spin over practicality. Or, as is presently being demonstrated by Jenrick, just wholeheartedly corrupt.
  - danjac 6y ago
    The current lot remind me of every terrible tech-illiterate manager or client who uses phrases like "it's got to be easy..." or "you only have to...". Cummings is the worst case, the manager who has learned just enough to consider himself an expert but not enough to realize how out of his depth he really is.
    - craftinator 6y ago
      Reminds me of Rise of the Expert Beginner: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    And think things through - bring Back Steve¡Bong! or Nathen Barley I say. Steve¡Bong! was a satirical invention of The Register for those who are unfamiliar
  - growlist 6y ago
    I seem to recall Tony Blair's Labour government making one significant foreign policy decision that rather outweighs anything the Tories have done since, but if you'd prefer I stick to Labour's financial incompetence I could just mention PFI.
- dathinab 6y ago
  (not specific to this case) It's so often both in some ratio. The worst combination is largely corrupt and incompetent leading to people causing massive damages for small personal profit.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Well maybe if we had supported our local high tech businesses better the UK would be self sufficient and if Martlesham / Marconi had been better manged we would have our own 5g tech.

arethuza 6y ago
Marconi used to be a pretty impressive company - I used to know some people from the team that worked on nuclear power station simulators and they were all pretty smart! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like their senior management were quite so smart: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver.observerbusiness https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/nov/18/theobserver...
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  Here's a story from 2012 about how the Fore management recalls the history of the company, complete with words like "tech superstars" and "multibillion dollar success". https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-founders-reunite-for-evening.html https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2012/07/12/fore-...
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Well, you have to congratulate the management team at FORE - they even pointed out that ATM might be on the way out during the acquisition process and Marconi still bought them.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Are the GEC/Marconi management out of work and destitute now? I'm going to guess they got multimillion pay packets and that the personal cost to themselves was probably negative (ie they made money) but would be interested to hear otherwise.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    "out of work and destitute" Does being in the House of Lords for a while count? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Simpson,_Baron_Simpson_of_Dunkeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Simpson,_Baron_Simpson_...

aarong11 6y ago

Non-paywall link: https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-experts-oneweb-investment-uk-galileo-brexit https://www.theguardian.com./science/2020/jun/26/satellite-e... (put a . after the domain)

pmyteh 6y ago
It's not a real paywall - if you hit the (fairly small) 'no thanks' button the modal goes away without registration. Bit annoying, though.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

There was never a actual will to develop a competitor to Galileo/GPS. This a political tactic for Brexit. This is still for the show. This will die out at some point.

maltelandwehr 6y ago
If they make the investment, it is more than just show. But I have my doubts about the end result of this endeavor as well.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  It's a proposed investment in a bankrupt company, and apparently not the most suited one. We'll see...
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  This is essentially a PR-only government run by a disgraced racist former journalist who has no extended attention span, no useful real-life skills, and nothing but contempt for STEM culture - but also believes that he's intelligent enough to talk his way out of any situation. Expecting anything other than wasted money and failure is an exercise in unrealistic optimism.
  - bennyelv 6y ago
    Ten years ago if you'd predicted that trump would be in the White House and Johnson would be in No 10, you would have been laughed at... Nobody's laughing now because the reality isn't funny.
    - dillonmckay 6y ago
      Governing and campaigning are very different things, though. What is the difference in effort between ‘selling’ a $15k website or application versus writing, maintaining and deploying said application?

kmlx 6y ago

> the EU project that the UK helped design before losing access to due to Brexit how can you lose access if you already paid for it? who negotiated this? i assume a politician. a business person would have either asked for a cash payment or sued.

maltelandwehr 6y ago
They did not „already pay for it“. Think of the EU like a gym. Only because the gym bought a treadmill with your membership fees from last year, does not mean you get to keep access to that treadmill once you decide to terminate your gym membership.
- kmlx 6y ago
  what if i was also involved in scoping out the requirements for that purchase and/or also involved in designing certain features? i think we can all agree the EU is pretty far away from the concept of a gym. when't the last time your gym imposed rules that had a direct consequence on your life?
  - Someone 6y ago
    For most members of a gym, I guess that would be today. Most gyms require members to abide by various coronavirus-triggered regulations (including, in quite a few countries, the rule “don’t enter the gym”)
  - dillonmckay 6y ago
    Like closing for a pandemic?
  - moomin 6y ago
    Try skinny-dipping in the pool sometime.
kmlx 6y ago
from another article in the more reputable FT (https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8e2f https://www.ft.com/content/a1da90e8-8869-4740-b5eb-d8c6339d8...) > The company, which originally intended to offer affordable internet services to the remotest parts of the planet, has 74 satellites in orbit and plans for several hundred more. OneWeb also has a significant advantage in that it has priority on broadcast spectrum over SpaceX’s Starlink, a rival low-earth satellite internet service, people close to the subject said. In April, OneWeb approached the UK government for a £500m loan as part of a wider $2.2bn financing from private investors. However, the government has decided on an equity investment to preserve its influence. The company is regulated by the UK’s Ofcom, but its management is largely American. Its satellites are also manufactured in Florida in a joint venture with Airbus. It has promised to repatriate manufacturing to the UK. The government’s potential participation in a OneWeb bid has been the focus of fierce opposition in some parts of the space industry, which had hoped to win positions on a Galileo-style navigation project. Critics have dismissed the low-earth technology as unproven and fraught with risk. However, a deciding factor appears to have been support from US defence officials who have told the government they do not want the UK to develop a replica of the GPS system. A low-earth navigation service would complement the US system and offer extra resilience to US allies, say several parties close to the subject. ---- so yeah, as always, it's actually more complicated than it seems. this is why i usually tend to steer far away from the guardian or other general purpose newspapers, they never offer the full picture.

donatj 6y ago

> intended to mitigate the UK’s loss of access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system. I thought Galileo was an open system? Quoting Wikipedia “ The EU's stance is that Galileo is a neutral technology, available to all countries and everyone.”

Tomte 6y ago
Everyone can use it, but Galileo is also a program to fund and support EU companies. British companies won't receive any orders for producing the satellites and other technology anymore. So the Johnson government is looking for ways to generate orders for British companies, as well. [edit: changed "their own" to British", because readers might misread it as "companies owned by government officials"]
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  >[edit: changed "their own" to British", because readers might misread it as "companies owned by government officials"] Perhaps not owned by government officials, but Cummings' pals are certainly getting a lot of government contracts without proper tendering recently...
tialaramex 6y ago
All the GNSS systems have a mixture of services intended for the general public and so keys are public - and systems for which the keys needed aren't public. Most of them (e.g. GPS) say the non-public keys are for the military, since the EU does not have a military it says these keys are for "Public regulated services" and highlights that Galileo is ostensibly 100% civilian. The UK won't have access to PRS service from Galileo. It isn't entitled to equivalent access to GPS, and obviously not to GLONASS or Beidou. So rather than say "We're a small unimportant island so that's fine" our government feels it absolutely must have equivalent capability.
- hannibalhorn 6y ago
  I'm ignorant on the topic, but I'm really surprised the US wouldn't share that "equivalent access" to GPS with the UK? Certainly seems like we'd be happy to sell such access to a close ally for less than the $600+ million investment referenced here...

bryanlarsen 6y ago

One Ars Technica comment tries to find the reasoning, postulating that this new proposal is designed to be complementary to GPS/GNSS rather than a replacement for it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-launch-a-full-complement-of-starlink-satellites-with-visors/?comments=1&post=39018393 https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/spacex-set-to-launch... But that comment section is mostly pretty scathing.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
"Classic Dom" as they say

eeh 6y ago

If someone is inclined to critique this, have they considered the whole situation, and do they have better ideas? Remain in the EU has sailed, sadly. What do we do now? Is it possible investing in an existing space company is the best path for the UK to have its own GPS-like satellites?

madaxe_again 6y ago
If they wanted a high resolution positioning system to cover the British isles, it could be accomplished with an entirely ground based triangulation network at a tiny fraction of the cost. Same principles, just cheaper, and a smaller area covered.
- eeh 6y ago
  Does that work with GPS chips in phones? Does that facilitate research into space? Does that provide continuity for existing space research/universities? Is space research considered to be geopolitically important? I don't know the answers to these, but I do know these decisions are beyond arm chair critique.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    Also less know: GPS can be used as an additional "highish" precision clock source for servers. It works based on the device having known GPS position and knowledge that the position didn't change at all. EDIT: This as far as I know also applies to other GPS like systems.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    >Does that work with GPS chips in phones? I'm not super familiar with how Differential GPS works in practice, but I believe that the common phone receivers are able to pick it up. At the very least they're able to handle satellite based augmentations like WAAS and QZSS
- dathinab 6y ago
  The problem is the British sea. If it's just the land mass it's really not a supper big problem. It's still kinda big as devices would need to specially manufactured for their system, which can drive costs up.

xondono 6y ago

Whatever the incentives were, I actually prefer this choice to the alternatives. This project (like Galileo) is about subsidizing the space sector first, and application is a distant 34th. I'd rather see the money flowing to people trying new stuff that to stablished companies building the same old systems.

hyko 6y ago
I the UK really wanted blue sky thinking, why not open up a competition?
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Biggest beneficiary from Galileo (during Britain's stain in the EU) was actually a small UK satellite company, Surrey Satellite Technology.
manquer 6y ago
Galileo had SST( a British company) building a lot of the components . OneWeb only has a official HQ in the U.K and is just an operator, I don't any development happens in the U.K and was largely done by Airbus. Perhaps it can change in the future, however given OneWeb's uncertain future post their bankruptcy I am not sure this investment is the best way to promote the space sector.
- xondono 6y ago
  I’m not saying it’s a good bet. I’m saying that if you are going to throw the money out the window anyway, throwing it at new stuff is a much more promising heuristic (even if in this particular case it’s a bad move)

CraigJPerry 6y ago

Seems reasonable at first glance to me: 1a. satellite company with products goes bust 1b. Government wants different type of satellite but prohibitively expensive to pursue 2. Govt speculates in 1a in order to reduce cost of 1b What’s the smoking gun i missed?

madaxe_again 6y ago
You need a truck to move a container of freight across the country. You buy a skateboard, hoping that you can modify it to do the job.
- echotango 6y ago
  analogies are not evidence
pjc50 6y ago
Lack of tender process? Equity investment into already-bankrupt company? Not actually a manufacturer but operator? (the actual manufacturer appears to be Airbus: https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/15/oneweb-selects-airbus-to-build-900-internet-satellites/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/15/oneweb-selects-airbus-... ) Track record of Brexit snap procurements that turned out to be total losses? e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/brexit-ferry-fiasco-could-be-repeated-mps-warn https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/10/brexit-ferr... Ongoing Johnson/Desmond corruption allegations? Leave it a few weeks and someone will find which Tory party donor was tied to this firm.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

Isn't it possible for the UK to re-join Galileo even when not in EU? I'd think Galileo would be happy to get additional (paying) members.

manquer 6y ago
I guess it is optics not that Galileo will not want, paying may not go well with pro Brexit base.

TYPE_FASTER 6y ago

Two potential outcomes I can think of: 1. The UK builds ground stations and combines timing data from OneWeb with ground station reference points to achieve high navigation precision, 2. "You are within 1km of your destination. For final routing instructions, join OneWeb now for the low rate of"

trhway 6y ago
yes, UK can cover itself with ground stations and thus can get the high precision on the island. That wouldn't help though to target weapons or even to just drive ships/tanks/planes anywhere else in the world.

d_silin 6y ago

I'd like to note that it is feasible to reuse current OneWeb satellite as ad-hoc GNSS, just the accuracy will be much worse than current service from Galileo or GPS

gchadwick 6y ago
This is the point I'd really like to see some more detail on or discussion on from relevant experts. I'm sure you can build some kind of GNSS with the capabilities of OneWeb satellites, can you build something with similar capabilities to existing GNSS (GPS was original designed in the 70s so was designed with receivers with limited computational capability, with modern capabilities can you build a system that requires lots more satellites for a good fix, where those satellites don't need the same capabilities as a GPS satellite for instance)? If not do you need small tweaks to OneWeb's current platform or a total overhaul to build a GNSS? I can well believe the UK government has been sold on a thing that can't work, but equally I can see reasons it may be possible to use OneWorld's existing platform for a GNSS service.
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  One of the biggest drivers of cost on GNSS satellites is the need for an extremely accurate clock. Position is calculated based on a series of ranges to the satellites with a "known" position. That range is calculated is based on a time-of-flight so you need a very accurate time source. The whole Galileo project cost is 10 billion [0] and this is "cheap" compared to the US GPS system. I can't find great numbers for it, but for the cost of building two new GPS satellites this year is $1.8 billion [1] and operating cost for the existing constellation I believe is on the order of 100s of millions. I know someone could probably do it for cheaper, but I guess my point is putting an atomic clock in space is expensive. But I also wanted to come back to the cost of operations and "known" satellite position. Because if you need your GPS satellites to have good enough position and time knowledge you need something on the ground with a better than extremely accurate clock. See this picture of the backup clock arriving at the GPS operations center [2] Edit: Also see my comment a couple comments down on my assessment of possible accuracy of the current one-web satellites to get an idea of accuracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) [1] https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2079489/dod-releases-fiscal-year-2021-budget-proposal/ https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/20... [2] https://www.schriever.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/276171/new-alternate-master-clock-arrives-at-schriever/ https://www.schriever.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/27...

Wistar 6y ago

I can't help but hear "We've bought the wrong satellites" in Peter Sallis's voice: "Woah! It's the wrong satellites Grommit, and they've gone wrong!"

TLightful 6y ago
Hah. I can't get Michael Caine's voice out of my head ... "We've only gone and bought the wrong bloody satellites" Our Government is a laughing stock ... It'll probably take a generation to recover from this mess.

dr_orpheus 6y ago

I think this is so ironic given that a company in the UK manufactures the navigation payloads for the Galileo satellites https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/featured/navigation https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/featured/navigation

tacheiordache 6y ago

But UK doesn’t need any sattelite because it is quickly becoming one itself. Now leaving the sarcasm aside, I feel bad for British folks, the whole brexit thing is going to be more painful than it appears to be and all kinds of surprises like this are going to pop up. What is there to do? Maybe this crisis will lead to a complete overhaul of the political class, maybe they do away with the crown and all the lords too and become once for all pragmatic and hardheaded.

gandalfian 6y ago

Built in Florida and launched from French South America on Russian rockets but labeled British... Still if it worked the British army's annual communications bill would probably pay for it.

credit_guy 6y ago

Ugh, where do I start? The UK did not buy any satellites. They bought a stake in a satellite company. Actually, they didn't do that either, they submitted a bid to buy a stake in a satellite company. The bid will be reviewed, and after it's approved by the US, they may win it. Once they have the stake, the satellite company, OneWeb, may build for the UK some satellites for a new global positioning system, or they may build some other satellite capabilities. If they go for the first one, they can build satellites at the same altitude as the ones they have placed in orbit so far (1200 km), or at a different altitude. If they place them at the 1200km altitude, it's not clear at all why this would be bad, except that some self-declared experts pointed out that the current GPS satellites are at a higher altitude.

nordsieck 6y ago
> If they place them at the 1200km altitude, it's not clear at all why this would be bad, except that some self-declared experts pointed out that the current GPS satellites are at a higher altitude. The main downside of this is that you typically need more satellites. If I recall, you need a minimum of 4 satellites to get a position, and more is beneficial. With modern atomic clocks and other trappings, that could get expensive.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  Actually, modern atomic clocks should be less expensive, not more expensive than the ones produced 30 years ago that power the original GPS satellites. For example, chip-scale atomic clocks [1] can be had for about $1000 [2]. Here's a space rated such atomic clock [3]. I couldn't find the cost, but let's say it's one hundred times more expensive than a "civilian" version. It's still negligible even compared to the cost of putting the satellite in orbit only. Speaking of which, this calculator [4] shows me that with the same rocket, going from an altitude of 1000km to 20000km cuts the cargo mass roughly in half. And another difference between 20000km and 1000km is the fact that radio signals decay with the square of the distance. At 20000 km you need an antenna that's 400 times more powerful than at 1000km. That means you need correspondingly more solar panels and more radiators. Overall, the satellite will be many, many times heavier. For example the GPS satellite USA-132 currently in service has a mass of 2 tons [5]. If the lower orbit affords you a mass reduction not by a factor of 400, but only by a factor of 10, you end up with 200 kg. The current OneWeb satellites weigh about 150kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-scale_atomic_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip-scale_atomic_clock [2] https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article/21806867/cant-afford-an-atomic-clock-get-a-molecular-one https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article... [3] https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-frequency-references/5207-space-csac#overview https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/embedded-clocks-... [4] https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-injection-calculator.htm https://www.satsig.net/orbit-research/delta-v-geo-injection-... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-132

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mopsi 6y ago

On a side note: it's the first time I see a Putinbot on HN. If you've ever read about Russian troll farms, then user gdy in this thread is pretty much copy-pasting their standard talking points ("encirceled" Russia, NATO warmongers, Baltic Nazis and other memes). Reddit became flooded with them years ago, I'm surprised HN took them this long.