Chinese rival to Starlink strikes deal with Brazil

21/11/2024 6:17

        China's low Earth
        orbit satellite company SpaceSail, which aims to challenge Elon
        Musk's Starlink, signed an agreement to enter the Brazilian
        market, the company said on Wednesday, during Chinese President
        Xi Jinping's state visit to Brasilia.
        
        SpaceSail signed a memorandum with Brazilian state telecom
        Telebras to provide satellite communications and
        broadband Internet services to the Latin American country.
        
        The accord is one of many during Xi's meetings with
        Brazilian peer Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the presidential
        residence, following a summit of the Group of 20 major economies
        in Rio de Janeiro this week.
        
        Low Earth orbit satellites usually operate at altitudes of
        300 km to 2,000 km (186 to 1,240 miles) above the Earth's
        surface, with the advantage of being cheaper and providing more
        efficient transmission than satellites at higher orbits.
        
        SpaceX's Starlink is a growing commercial broadband
        constellation that has over 6,000 satellites in space and is
        used by consumers, companies and government agencies.
        
        The agreement, which marks the start of SpaceSail's overseas
        business, comes soon after Brazil's Supreme Court temporarily
        froze the bank accounts of Starlink in the country to force
        billionaire Elon Musk to pay fines in a dispute between the
        court and social media platform X, also owned by Musk.
        
        "What we are working on is so that Brazilian society can
        have options of more than one company offering the service that
        is essential and fundamental for the population today,
        especially in remote areas," Communications Minister Juscelino
        Filho told CNN Brasil.
        
        China currently has 1,059 satellites in orbit, 492 of which
        are commercial satellites, according to state news agency
        Xinhua.
        
        Chinese private and state-owned firms, including weapons
        makers, have started launching dozens of LEO satellites, vowing
        to catch up with Starlink by creating mega-constellations of
        thousands of satellites each.
        
        "The satellite communication services provided by SpaceSail
        for Brazil will be realized on the basis of the Thousand Sails
        Constellation, a giant low-orbit satellite constellation
        adopting a full-frequency-band, multi-layer and multi-orbit
        design," SpaceSail said in a statement.
        
        Chinese researchers in the People's Liberation Army have
        over the past two years studied the deployment of Starlink in
        the war in Ukraine and warned of the risks it poses to China if
        it finds itself in an armed conflict with the United States.
        
        Starlink's clients in Brazil include the armed forces.