SAN FRANCISCO - A thunderous crackle ripped through the Amazon rain forest on Wednesday evening, carrying with it the notion that the world is entering a new, even more connected age.
This is part of a boom in private space investment and activity, fueled by a race to create a computing and data-communications shell surrounding the Earth. Current satellite orders would increase the amount of hardware orbiting the planet by at least five times over the next few years. OneWeb is about a year behind schedule and watched as Mr Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a pair of test satellites for a rival space Internet service last year. The startup was also under pressure to have a successful launch before the end of November, when its right to valuable spectrum would have expired.
OneWeb says it can build the units at a rate of two a day for less than a 10th of the cost of a traditional system. The older satellites also orbit at about 29,770km versus about 1,200km for OneWeb's machines, which should help OneWeb deliver data more quickly. These space Internet services have been talked about for years, but have faced funding problems, as investors weigh whether or not they make economic sense.