Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announced TeraWave, a new communications network of 5,408 satellites that should provide global internet access and meet the needs of customers with large volumes of traffic.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin announced TeraWave, a new communications network of 5,408 satellites that should provide global internet access and meet the needs of customers with large volumes of traffic.
According to Interesting Engineering, the constellation will have a two-tier architecture: 5,280 vehicles will operate in low Earth orbit, and another 128 in medium orbit as «backbone» nodes. Blue Origin explains that the medium-orbit segment will become a high-speed «bridge» for data transmission between hubs and regions, using optical laser links. Deployment is planned to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027, and the company is targeting the service to reach its target parameters by the end of 2027.
TeraWave is positioned as a solution for data centers, government agencies and global companies that value symmetric upload and download speeds, channel redundancy and rapid scaling. The company claims peak throughput of up to 6 Tbps for MEO satellites and up to 144 Gbps for LEO devices over radio channels, particularly for remote, rural and suburban areas where laying optics is expensive or technically difficult.
The satellite internet market is already oversaturated: Starlink has over 9,500 active satellites and is targeting the mass user, while Amazon is preparing its own group of about 3,200 devices. The discussion around such projects also touches on the issues of orbital clutter and interference with astronomical observations.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the US Federal Communications Commission approved the deployment of an additional 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites. After the regulator’s decision, SpaceX receives permission for 15,000 Gen2 devices, as well as the right to modernize the platform and operate in five frequency bands.
