The subject of frequent posts on this blog ...Jake Hoffman is an Arizona state senator in Arizona's 15th district. He
was previously a state representative in Arizona's 12th district. He was
elected to the seat after incumbent Republican Warren Petersen decided
to run for the Arizona Senate. Wikipedia
5 hours ago · Jake Hoffman as a “fake elector” after the Queen Creek Republican ... That refers to the fact that Hoffman was one of the 11 names sent by the Arizona ...
How Arizona Election Deniers Cashed in on the Big Lie - Accountable US
Molly Kozlowski
5 - 7 minutes
The same election denialism that fueled the violent
January 6th attack persisted through the 2022 election cycle, thanks to
MAGA conservatives’ extremist candidates who led baseless election
lawsuits and peddled conspiracy theories in races across the country.
A standout: Kari Lake,
who not only continues to dispute her own loss in Arizona but is also
busy ginning up support for the election denial movement in other
states.
Yet, as much as our democracy stands to lose thanks to the “Big
Lie,” some have personally benefited from promoting the conspiracy.
Accountable.US’ new report reveals that a number of prominent conservatives have made a cottage industry out of fraudulent election challenges.
While these operatives have profited from their influence in
races across the nation, Arizona is home to two of the biggest grifters:
attorney Kurt Olsen and newly-elected state senator Jake Hoffman. Our report details how these members of Kari Lake’s kitchen cabinet profited off of election denial:
While these operatives have profited from their influence in
races across the nation, Arizona is home to two of the biggest grifters:
attorney Kurt Olsen and newly-elected state senator Jake Hoffman. Our report details how these members of Kari Lake’s kitchen cabinet profited off of election denial: READ MORE
6 days ago · When Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman endorsed Kari Lake for governor, he earned not just a political ally — but also a lucrative chance to cash in on her ...
Queen Creek, Arizona. Jake Hoffman is a Christian, husband, father of 5, businessman, contributing columnist at Townhall.com, public servant, conservative
New Migration Data: 29% of Phoenix apartment hunters looking to move away
"Amid this turbulent pandemic rental market, a large share of renters
are considering long-distance moves. Among Apartment List users in 2022,
40 percent searched for apartments outside their home metro, and 27
percent searched in a new state altogether. Some of this reshuffling is
undoubtedly attributable to the long-term adoption of remote work, which
offers newfound flexibility to a segment of the workforce that also
earns relatively high wages. Remote workers moved at higher rates in the past, and recent data suggest they will continue to do so in the near future.
SKIP AHEAD >
Conclusion
In 2022, 40 percent of Apartment
List users were searching for their next home in a different metro from
where they currently live, and 27 percent were searching in a new state
entirely. Such long-distance moves tend to be more common among
higher-income renters, with those searching in a new metro or state
coming with higher budgets than the existing residents of the markets
they’re searching in. We see renters searching out of the most expensive
parts of the country, such as California and New York, and flocking to
areas that were previously affordable, but where this spiking demand has
begun to drive up prices. This dynamic is particularly relevant at a
time when housing affordability has been rapidly worsening and remote
work has enabled greater geographic flexibility.
Complete metro- and state-level migration data
For access to granular data, the tables below offer summaries for over 100 metropolitan areas and all 50 states + D
Welcome
to the latest Apartment List Renter Migration Report. Here we analyze
data on millions of searches to see where our users are looking to move,
shedding new light on the migration patterns of America’s renters. This
report incorporates the search preferences of users who registered with
Apartment List between January 1 and December 31, 2022.
In 2022 many renters considered long-distance moves
After
2021, a year characterized by rapid household formation and unrelenting
rent inflation, 2022 was a bit of a roller coaster for the rental
market. It started where 2021 left off, with prices continuing to rise
and low vacancy rates leaving renters with few affordable housing
options. But the market reversed quickly in the second half of the year,
as inflation and a worsening economic outlook dampened housing demand
and pushed rents down for five consecutive months. Full-year rent growth
for 2022 came in just shy of 4 percent, not far off from pre-pandemic
levels.
Amid this turbulent pandemic rental market, a large share
of renters are considering long-distance moves. Among Apartment List
users in 2022, 40 percent searched for apartments outside their home
metro, and 27 percent searched in a new state altogether. Some of this
reshuffling is undoubtedly attributable to the long-term adoption of
remote work, which offers newfound flexibility to a segment of the
workforce that also earns relatively high wages. Remote workers moved at higher rates in the past, and recent data suggest they will continue to do so in the near future.
Long-distance movers bring higher budgets with them
Long-distance
movers tend to have larger budgets than the renters already living in
the regions they are moving to. In 2022, the average budget among
renters moving to a new metro was $1,669, 5.5 percent higher than that
of renters searching within their current metro ($1,582). And for
cross-state movers, we see an even greater budget premium of 11.5
percent. Long-distance moves are logistically difficult and expensive,
and are therefore more common among high-earners.
✓ This dynamic
means that markets experiencing an influx of new renters are likely to
face increased affordability challenges. This has been particularly true
since the start of the pandemic, as remote work has enabled a surge in domestic migration.
With new housing supply unable to keep pace with rising demand in the
short term, a number of popular markets, primarily located in the Sun
Belt, have seen rents rise by 30% or more since early 2020.
California is exporting high rents to nearby states
With
affordability waning, a key migration trend during the pandemic has
been the movement of renters away from the nation’s most-expensive
markets and towards more-affordable ones. This is suggested not only by
the budget data above, but also rent growth trends as well as official population estimates from the US Census Bureau.
At
the forefront of this trend is California, which lost more than 500,000
residents from 2020 to 2022 according to the Census Bureau. Over that
span, California had the second largest absolute population decline of
any state in the country, and the fourth largest decline in percentage
terms. Despite its massive economy and high wages, it also suffers from
some of the nation’s highest housing costs, driving a significant number
of the state’s residents to seek more affordable options.
✓ Perhaps
surprisingly, our search data implies that the Californians looking to
leave the state, are not, in fact, its highest earners. The average
budget of California renters who were searching for apartments in other
states was $1,897 in 2022, which is 13 percent lower than the budget of
those looking to remain in the state ($2,187). California was one of
just five states where renters looking to move to a new state had lower
budgets than those looking to remain in-state, and California had the
widest gap among those five.
That said, the budgets of those
renters leaving California were still 24% higher, on average, than the
budgets of existing residents in the states they were moving to, the
second largest such premium for any state. To demonstrate this more
clearly, see the specific budget comparisons for the five states that
California renters were most likely to be searching in:
The most
popular destinations were the neighboring states of Nevada and Arizona,
which each accounted for 11 percent of out-of-state searches from
California renters. Californians searching in Nevada had an average
budget of $1,514, which was 8.4 percent higher than the average among
renters already living in Nevada and looking to remain in the state. In
Arizona, incoming Californians had a 3.1 percent budget premium over
existing residents. Despite these premiums, the budgets of California
renters looking to move to these states were much lower than the average
among all Californians looking to leave the state, and also much closer
to averages of in-state renters. It seems that lower-income
Californians who are being priced out of the state are most likely to
move to these more budget-friendly bordering states. . ."
Welcome
to the latest Apartment List Renter Migration Report. Here we analyze
data on millions of searches to see where our users are looking to move,
shedding new light on the migration patterns of America’s renters. This
report incorporates the search preferences of users who registered with
Apartment List between January 1 and December 31, 2022.
In 2022 many renters considered long-distance moves
After
2021, a year characterized by rapid household formation and unrelenting
rent inflation, 2022 was a bit of a roller coaster for the rental
market. It started where 2021 left off, with prices continuing to rise
and low vacancy rates leaving renters with few affordable housing
options. But the market reversed quickly in the second half of the year,
as inflation and a worsening economic outlook dampened housing demand
and pushed rents down for five consecutive months. Full-year rent growth
for 2022 came in just shy of 4 percent, not far off from pre-pandemic
levels.
Amid this turbulent pandemic rental market, a
large share of renters are considering long-distance moves. Among
Apartment List users in 2022, 40 percent searched for apartments outside
their home metro, and 27 percent searched in a new state altogether.
Some of this reshuffling is undoubtedly attributable to the long-term
adoption of remote work, which offers newfound flexibility to a segment
of the workforce that also earns relatively high wages. Remote workers moved at higher rates in the past, and recent data suggest they will continue to do so in the near future. . ." READ MORE
Today, less-lethal weapons are employed by law enforcement agencies and militaries across the globe.The effects of these weapons are not minor. Even if they are designed
not to kill, the less-lethals most commonly used in crowd control –
tear-gas canisters, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades—can easily break
limbs, shatter skulls, burn and lacerate skin, destroy eyesight and
hearing, concuss brains, and contuse flesh.
This article was supported in part by the Pulitzer Center.
". . .While most efforts to rein in the use of less-lethal weapons have
focused on how police use them, some are aimed at manufacturers...[]
Activists have also protested against manufacturers, including
Combined Systems and NonLethal Technologies, which continue to sell tear
gas and other less-lethals to countries with poor human rights records.
After Hong Kong police used tear gas made by NonLethal Technologies and
other American companies against pro-democracy demonstrators in 2019,
Congress passed a law banning the export of certain crowd-control
equipment to Hong Kong. Other countries, however, are still fair
game—and so is the US itself.
Following widespread use of tear gas
to quell the 2020 protests for racial justice, members of the US House
of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform opened an
investigation and sent letters out to the top three US manufacturers:
Pacem Defense, Safariland, and Combined Systems. The lawmakers concluded
that there is too little data to say definitively that tear gas has no
lasting health impacts, that the industry is insufficiently regulated,
and that manufacturers are exploiting a legal void to maximize profits.
The committee did not make any recommendations for action. . .
Nearly 100 years ago, the Chemical Warfare Service launched its PR
campaign to sanitize the reputation of weaponized gas. Today,
less-lethal weapons are employed by law enforcement agencies and
militaries across the globe. And though the weapons have come under
mounting scrutiny over the years, the most powerful, lasting mark of
that propaganda campaign is the binary that’s still implicit in the very
concept of less-lethal weapons: as if the only two options were these
munitions or lethal force. That false binary has given cover to a
brutal, shadowy industry—one that has remained unaccountable to basic
regulation for decades as it profits from the tensions in fraying
democracies. Even by conservative estimates, the less-lethal industry is
predicted to grow by more than $3 billion over the next decade."
Jun 23, 2020 · Beyond rubber and wood, other less lethal projectiles still in use include plastic bullets, which have also caused injuries and deaths, as well ...
4 days ago · With rubber bullets, batons, foam, bean bag rounds, and sponges failing to serve their less-lethal purpose effectively, there is a growing demand for weapons ...
Conversely, the use of less-lethal weapons (OC spray or CEDs) decreased the odds of injury to suspects. In the cross-sectional analysis, officers were ...
Jun 1, 2011 · Less-lethal technologies give police an alternative to using other physical force options that potentially are more dangerous to officers ...
One of the best defense products available is the Byrna SD, a legal, non-lethal self-defense weapon that fires pepper filled rounds up to 60 feet using CO2.
"A crowd of protesters was squaring off against a battalion of riot
police on a city boulevard as plumes of tear gas and dust clouded the
afternoon light. It could have been Hong Kong or Santiago in 2019,
Minneapolis or Portland in the summer of 2020, Tehran or Shanghai in the
winter of 2022.
But at this particular eruption of unrest in the spring of 2021 – in
Popayán, Colombia, a small city about 250 miles southwest of Bogotá –
the basic grammar of protest and retaliation was about to take a harsh
new shift.
Scores of young demonstrators were crouching behind a line of
homemade shields, trying to hold back the authorities. Colombia had been
in the midst of a general strike for more than two weeks, triggered by a
series of tax increases handed down in the middle of a debilitating
Covid shutdown. But as nationwide protests escalated in tandem with the
state’s response to them, police brutality became the demonstrators’
main grievance.
On the frontline that afternoon in Popayán, a 22-year-old engineering
student named Sebastian Quintero Munera took cover behind a piece of
plywood spray-painted with the phrase “Alison We Are With You” –
referring to a local teen who had died by suicide the previous morning
after alleging that she’d been sexually assaulted in police custody.
On the other side of those shields, officers in riot gear were spread
out across the width of the street in groups of two. Behind them, on
the tree-lined median that divided the boulevard, another group of
officers huddled around an unusual box with an array of metal tubes
pointing out of it, mounted on a small tripod. It looked a little like
the kind of equipment used to launch fireworks in a big New Year’s
pyrotechnic display. But the tubes were aimed at the street, not the
sky.
Without warning, a rapid succession of deafening blasts echoed down
the block. A barrage of blunt, barely visible projectiles ricocheted
against the shuttered windows of second-story apartments, off trees and
light posts, shields and bodies, as the street filled with a dense fog
of tear gas. The effect on the crowd was almost instantaneous. Gasping
for air, protesters scrambled over each other to retreat. They tripped
on abandoned shields, motorcycle helmets, and other make-do armour.
Within seconds, the officers reloaded the contraption and fired again.
The box on the tripod was a remote-controlled launcher called a
Venom, made by the US firm Combined Systems. Long used by the US Marine
Corps for combat operations in Iraq, Venom is capable of firing up to 30
tear-gas or flash-bang canisters at a time.
According to José Miguel Vivanco, who was the director of Human
Rights Watch’s Americas division at the time, Colombia’s clampdown
against demonstrators in 2021 marked the first time Venom had been used
in Latin America, and it was one of the most brutal examples of its
indiscriminate use by police against civilians anywhere in the world.
The launcher’s deployment in Colombia represented a new high-water
mark for a pervasive but often overlooked industry. Venom is now
marketed to militaries and police forces around the world as a top-tier
“less-lethal” weapons system. Sales of such weapons have quietly grown
over the past few decades and are now estimated to be a
multibillion-dollar business.
Demand has inched up alongside a historic rise in economic
inequality, political turmoil and mass demonstrations. According to
numerous researchers, the past decade or so has seen nearly
unprecedented protests worldwide, and less-lethal weapons are the chief
technologies devised to contain them.
The theory behind all less-lethal crowd-control devices, from the
simple billy club to the infrared laser dazzler, is that they allow
security forces to suppress a riot without committing a massacre. Law
enforcement and military experts have described them, again and again,
as a “humane” alternative to conventional arms – and often as the
frontier of high-tech innovation.
Perpetually just around the corner, it seems, is the widespread
adoption of futuristic weapons like sticky foam, net guns and heat rays.
That rhetoric obscures how remarkably stagnant the main menu of
less-lethal crowd-control weapons has remained. Tear gas has been around
for about 100 years, rubber bullets for 50, flash-bang grenades for 45,
and Tasers for 30. The language has also masked how brutal these
weapons can be, and how much they’ve been neglected by oversight bodies.
Tear gas – probably the most important less-lethal weapon for crowd
control – has been prohibited for use in war since the 1925 Geneva
Protocol. But no international treaty bans countries from using it
against their own citizens. Less-lethals are also specifically excluded
from the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty, a binding agreement that prohibits the
sale of weapons to countries with documented human rights abuses. And in
the United States, the world’s leading producer of less-lethals, no
federal legislation specifically regulates their manufacture.
✓ Unhindered by the kind of oversight on production, sale, use, and
export that applies to typical small arms, the less-lethals industry has
been left pretty much to its own devices. It is to the armaments trade
what dietary supplements are to the pharmaceutical industry: a
supposedly more benign sector that is, in practice, largely unsupervised
and often slipshod.
The effects of these weapons are not minor. Even if they are designed
not to kill, the less-lethals most commonly used in crowd control –
tear-gas canisters, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades—can easily break
limbs, shatter skulls, burn and lacerate skin, destroy eyesight and
hearing, concuss brains, and contuse flesh.
“They are as dangerous as the person firing them wants them to be,”
says physician and human rights activist Rohini Haar. And as a growing
body of research shows, these weapons have left a distinct trail of
injuries in the wake of movements like the Arab Spring, the Hong Kong
protests of 2019, and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2015 and
2020.
In the huge protests that swept Chile in 2019, ocular wounds from
rubber bullets and other projectiles were so rampant that eye bandages
became a nationwide symbol; the Chilean Ophthalmology Society called it
the largest outbreak of such injuries ever registered in a conflict
zone.
I know the impact of less-lethal weapons all too well: I was shot in
the face with one while covering a protest outside the White House in
2020. And sometimes the violence these weapons do to protesters’ bodies
is even more severe.
When the smoke cleared from the streets of Popayán last May,
Sebastian Munera was lying on the ground with a fist-sized hole in his
neck, bleeding out onto the pavement.
Biz Updates: Terran Orbital Wins $2.4B Contract, Vast Acquires Launcher, Relativity Space Sets Date for Terran 1's Maiden Launch
Doug Messier
4 minutes
Terran Orbital subsidiary Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems has been
awarded a $2.4 billion contract to supply 300 communications satellites
to Rivada Space Networks. The company will build 288 satellites for
deployment in low Earth orbit along with 12 spares.
“Terran Orbital, through its subsidiary Tyvak, will act as the prime
contractor to design and manufacture the approximately 500 kg
satellites, integrate the communication payload, and perform the final
satellite assembly, integration, and test. We will also be responsible
for developing portions of the ground segment,” Terran Orbital said.
“Mission operations for the on-orbit satellites will be conducted
from a state-of-the-art satellite operations control center. Rivada
expects to begin deploying its constellation as early as 2025, subject
to compliance with applicable regulatory requirements, with the
anticipated launch of four of our satellites,” the company added.
Rivada Space Networks is a subsidiary of Rivada Networks, a
U.S.-based company focused on open-access wholesale wireless
communications. The company operates in North and South America as well
as Europe.
Vast Acquires Launcher
Vast, a company developing an artificial gravity space station, has acquired propulsion company Launcher.
“This acquisition provides Vast with an established set of talent to
accelerate in-house advanced manufacturing and development capabilities
as well as spacecraft technologies. In addition, with Launcher’s Orbiter
space tug and hosted payload platform to reach orbit this year to
develop and test its on-orbit space station components and subsystems,”
Vast said in a press release.
“Vast will continue the Orbiter space tug and hosted payload products
as well as its staged combustion rocket engine E-2, and will focus on
liquid rocket engine products instead of developing its own launch
vehicle. Orbiter will continue to support current and future payload
customers,” the company added.
Vast, which is based in El Segundo, Calif., will bring its team to
more than 120 people by absorbing Launcher’s staff. Launcher Founder Max
Haot will join as Vast’s president. The enlarged company will move into
a 115,000 square-foot headquarters in Long Beach later this year.
Vast says that its artificial gravity station will have more interior volume than the International Space Station now in orbit.
Gravitics, which is based in Washington state, is also developing modules for artificial gravity space stations.
Relativity Space Sets Launch Date
Relativity Space has set March 8 as the launch date for the maiden launch of the first fully 3D-printed rocket.
Terran 1 will lift off from Launch Complex 16 at the Cape Canaveral
Space Force Station in Florida. The launch window opens at 1 p.m. EST
(18:00 UTC).
Terran 1 stands 33.5 m (110 ft.) tall and is powered by nine first
stage Aeon engines and one second stage Aeon engine that use liquid
oxygen and liquid natural gase. The rocket has the following payload
capacities:
Low Earth orbit: 1,250 kg (2,756 lb) to 185 km (115 miles)
Sun synchronous orbit: 900 kg (1,984 lb) to 500 km (311 miles)
Sun synchronous orbit: 700 kg (1,534 lb) to 1,200 km (746 miles).
Relativity Space is advertising dedicated launches at $12 million."
ULA Sets Launch May 4 Launch Date for Vulcan Rocket as BE-4 Engine Testing Continues
Doug Messier
4 - 5 minutes
Credit: Par SeanMichealClemes — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117737080
United Launch Alliance (ULA) has set May 4 as the date for the maiden
launch of its new Vulcan rocket. The flight will launch Astrobotic
Technology’s Peregrine spacecraft to land on the Moon as well as two
other payloads.
CEO Tory Bruno said during a call with reporters on Thursday that
qualification of Blue Origin’s BE-4 first-stage engine was the main
pacing item for the launch. Engineers found the oxygen pump on one of
the two BE-4 engines had about 5 percent better performance than other
engines the company had tested.
Bruno said that although performance variations of that magnitude are
not uncommon across large rocket motors, ULA wanted to make sure it was
not a sign of a more serious problem. The engine was taken off the test
stand and disassembled for examination.
With the examination completed, ULA is now prepared to resume testing
with the remaining BE-4 engine, he added. That process should take
about six weeks.
BE-4 engines have long been the main pacing item for the Vulcan
rocket, which is designed to replace the Atlas V and Delta IV boosters.
Blue Origin was years behind the original schedule for delivering them
to ULA. Blue Origin will also use the engines in its New Glenn rocket.
Launch windows only occur for a few days every month due to the
specific requirements of Astrobotic’s Mission One. Bruno said the
company might be able to meet a launch window in early April if the
engine testing goes well.
However, ULA settled on a four-day long window that begins on May 4.
The date allows the company to schedule launches for other customers
throughout the year.
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will carry 14 payloads for NASA and
other customers to the lunar surface. The mission is being funded under
the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program
under which companies are paid to deliver payloads to the moon.
Vulcan’s first launch will carry two demonstration satellites for
Amazon’s Kuiper 3,276-spacecraft broadband constellation. It will also
launch cremated remains, human DNA samples, and hair samples from the
late U.S. presidents George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, John F.
Kennedy and Ronald Reagan into deep space for Celestis.
As global threats increase, so have our adversaries’ missile
capabilities. A new generation of missiles has taken center stage:
hypersonic glide vehicles. These weapons are not only faster and more
maneuverable than traditional ballistic missiles but are incredibly
difficult to track. Because of the faint heat signature and
unpredictable flight trajectory of hypersonic missiles, the only way to
identify and track them is with advanced satellite technology.
". . .Threats to space-based missile warning and defense
assets are growing by the day. In addition to rogue satellites and space
debris, directed physical attacks and cyberattacks highlight the
emerging risks the U.S. military must be prepared to combat.
L3Harris is redefining how to develop and deploy missile warning and
defense satellites with responsive, resilient and affordable end-to-end
solutions to quickly proliferate constellations and address threats.
By leveraging proven capabilities like infrared imaging, real-time
detection algorithms and common interfaces and payloads, L3Harris is
rapidly addressing their mission partners’ most critical challenges,
quickly and affordably.
We have proven on-orbit technology:
Proven ability to launch reconfigurable, multimission software-defined payloads at scale
Record of cost-effectively meeting right-sized performance
requirements and balance life-cycle costs across an entire smallsat
constellation architecture
Years of experience delivering essential payloads in multiple orbits to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
Missile Warning and Defense Downloads
Space-Based Missile Warning and Defense Sell Sheet
Supporting Warfighters from Adversary Threats Infographic
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
China’s LEO push looms over Western expansion efforts
Jason Rainbow 22 Feb 2023
8 - 10 minutes
"Ambitious plans from China for a global broadband network could
hamper Western constellation operators seeking to maximize their
international subscriber numbers.
While finer details about these plans remain under wraps, they come
amid China’s aggressive pursuit for more international infrastructure
under its colossal Belt and Road initiative, which seeks to capitalize
on the country’s economic strength to play a higher profile role in
global affairs.
To date, state-owned satellite operator China Satcom has made little
impact on the world stage and has primarily focused on serving domestic
needs from geostationary orbit (GEO).
The operator has capacity across south and southeast Asia — and over
the Middle East and Africa in partnership with Belarus — but has little
international business other than in a few select markets, such as
Indonesia.
China’s international satellite communications presence is set to
change in the next five to 10 years as the country deploys a global
network in low Earth orbit (LEO).
A Chinese LEO constellation with
strong government backing could make it harder for western operators to
compete internationally, particularly in countries with deep political
ties to China.
Belarus, Pakistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Laos, and other counties that
have previously bought GEO satellites from China “might be more likely
to lean towards a Chinese constellation for government projects,” said
Blaine Curcio, a senior affiliate consultant for Euroconsult.
These countries could also be more inclined to award landing rights to a Chinese constellation over Western alternatives.
China’s international satellite communications presence is set to
change in the next five to 10 years as the country deploys a global
network in low Earth orbit (LEO).
While they might have been small markets anyway for the likes of
U.S.- based Starlink and OneWeb of the U.K., countries that could allow
both Western and Chinese constellations pose more interesting questions
for the future shape of the industry.
“This would include Indonesia,” Curcio added, “where the
population/market is big enough for the government to negotiate
favorable landing right terms with constellations, especially if there
are multiple options.”
Malaysia could also be in this group, along with Brazil, Argentina, and most large African countries.
Entering China
China itself remains largely closed off to foreign satellite broadband providers.
The Chinese government’s firm grip on information channels aside, the
country is already well-served by one of the world’s most developed
terrestrial communications networks.
Curcio estimates most non-Chinese satellite operators get less than 1% of any global revenues from China, and 0% in most cases.
Starlink and OneWeb have already said they have no plans to serve China with the constellations they are developing.
Up to now, the only operators outside mainland China that have done
much business in the country have been Inmarsat of the U.K., Thailand’s
Thaicom, and Hong Kong-based APT Satellite and AsiaSat.
And the more strategically important satellite communications become —
for keeping autonomous vehicles connected, for instance, or just
keeping up with the West — the more analysts expect China to emphasize
having its own domestic capabilities.
A similar situation played out three decades ago with the BeiDou
Navigation Satellite System, China’s alternative to GPS, Curcio noted.
✓ There will still be niche opportunities for foreign satellite
companies seen as leaders in non-sensitive sectors, he added, such as in
inflight connectivity, where U.S.-based GEO operator Viasat recently
secured a key regulatory milestone.
In partnership with China Satcom, Viasat said Jan. 10 it got
clearance that would enable it to install connectivity equipment on more
than 75% of domestic planes in China.
But for other types of user terminals and satellite applications,
Chinese service providers and manufacturers are closing the gap with the
west.
“I could imagine there still being demand in China for certain
high-end, cutting-edge technology, but this creates an issue because any
technology that would be so cutting-edge is likely subject to export
restrictions,” Curcio said.
India battleground
India is set to unseat China this year as the world’s most populous country, according to the United Nations.
India and China have populations of around 1.4 billion people, more
than four times the United States, offering huge subscriber potential
for connectivity players — although disposable incomes vary wildly
within these markets.
And unlike China, India has been making great strides to open up its
space industry to foreign companies as part of a push for more outside
investment.
These efforts began with carving out commercial functions from the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the country’s space agency,
to streamline them under more business-friendly organizations.
IN-SPACe, or the Indian National Space Promotion Authorization
Centre, is now in charge of regulating private sector initiatives in
India’s space industry.
And NSIL (NewSpace India Limited) was created to be ISRO’s commercial
arm for handling functions such as leasing capacity from other
satellite operators.
A
SpaceX Falcon 9 launching 49 satellites for its Starlink broadband
constellation Jan. 31. The company has launched more than 200 Starlink
satellites since the start of 2023 to expand its network worldwide. Credit: SpaceX
Foreign satellite operators have occasionally been allowed to lease
capacity temporarily to India’s government when the country cannot meet
demand with domestically operated satellites, but only under onerous
terms that have turned off investors.
A burdensome and uncertain regulatory environment has made India “a
difficult market” for foreign space companies, Analysys Mason senior
analyst Vivek Prasad said.
However, he expects a new space policy that would mark the
culmination of efforts to bring in more foreign space players will be
finalized in the first quarter of 2023.
“The market expectation is that it will offer a level playing field to the private players,” Prasad added.
Starlink, OneWeb, and other western satellite operators have been
lining up to meet demand for more broadband in the country as it eases
protectionist measures.
OneWeb recently got “in-principle approval” for setting up a gateway
in India, spokesperson Katie Dowd said, after getting other clearances
for its LEO broadband constellation.
She said OneWeb is “eagerly awaiting” the new satcoms policy as a
stepping stone to the final approval it needs to provide services in
India. However, its network can currently only provide partial coverage
there until more satellites are launched.
While momentum behind this policy has been picking up after two years
of deliberations, Euroconsult senior affiliate consultant Gagan Agrawal
cautioned that orbital slot and frequency rights remain contentious
topics.
Even still, the country’s trajectory remains firmly toward more international collaboration in satellite communications.
In 2021, U.K.-based Inmarsat said BSNL, an Indian state-owned telco,
got all the licenses needed to deliver broadband to aviation, maritime,
and government customers in the country by using the British operator’s
satellites.
BSNL was also cleared a year later to use a gateway installed in
India to connect Inmarsat’s satellites to Internet of Things (IoT)
devices.
More “Western players are expected to provide capacity into the Indian market in the short term,” Agrawal added.
While recent Sino-Indian border skirmishes have not been doing the
Belt and Road initiative any favors in India, these Western operators
will be hoping their foothold is strong enough to withstand any
competitive push from China’s constellation down the line.
This article originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine.
China’s
2007 test of its ground-based ASAT missile destroyed one of its own
defunct satellites in LEO. The graphic depicts the orbits of trackable
debris generated by the test 1 month after the event. The white line
represents the International Space Station’s orbit. (Credit: Wikimedia
Commons)
Continuing our look at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2019 Report to Congress, we examine the growing threat from China’s military space systems. [Full Report]
China’s development of offensive space capabilities may now be
outstripping the United States’ ability to defend against them,
increasing the possibility that U.S. vulnerability combined with a lack
of a credible deterrence posture could invite Chinese aggression.
According to Mr. [Todd] Harrison, [a senior space expert at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies], China is “developing, testing,
and operationalizing counterspace weapons at a faster pace than [the
United States is] making progress protecting [its] space systems against
these threats.”
China’s counterspace doctrine is intended to deter the United States
from entering a conflict and provide options for rapid escalation once
conflict has begun, representing an approach to space warfare which
risks destabilizing the space environment.
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