Recycling Old Satellites and Selling Stardust Dreams
So, we learn that EchoStar, heir to a half-century of satellite glory and questionable profit margins, wants to blanket Earth with shiny new LEO gizmos. They’ve apparently repackaged the same dusty spectrum relics from extinct companies, DBSD, TerreStar, into a shiny global promise.
Over $18 billion later, they still haven’t convinced handset makers to build phones that talk to space. No big deal: if you squint, “7 billion additional people” means at least a handful might actually get a text someday.
They’ve picked MDA Space, Canada’s aerospace pet project, because who can resist polite Ottawa backing? MDA, basking in a backlog that’s mostly government-funded, gushes about “software-defined” satellites the way dot-coms once bragged “e-everything.” Let’s hope the code is bug-free before the first hundred of these beauties orbit aimlessly.
Licenses from Alaska to Angola, they claim, though in many places, delivery dates and regulatory approvals remain optional suggestions. If 3GPP’s NTN specs shift again, you’ll need a new firmware update, if you can even find a phone that installs it. And they’ll launch in 2028? Cute. By then, everyone might be streaming holograms.
In sum, EchoStar’s space extravaganza is part utopian connectivity vision, part “let’s pretend our old satellite toys still have value.”
Strap in for the ride, just don’t hold your breath waiting for “global service” until after Q3 2029.
