Eutelsat OneWeb is a growing global connected community. That’s what the publicity says. Once upon a time I wrote about OneWeb. I wrote about it in the context of Brexit.
One of the touted benefits of Brexit was autonomy, in other words, British innovation leading the way to benefit Britain above all others. It’s that aggressive assertion of sovereignty that was at the core of Brexit. Remember, it wasn’t so long ago that this was part of Brexiters fantasies?
In the Brexit turbulence the UK Government walked away from the EU’s Galileo programme. The UK no longer participates in the European Galileo or EGNOS programmes[1].
Then in 2020 the UK changed its original post-Brexit position and scraped building a national alternative to the Galileo satellite system[2]. At that time, Business Secretary Alok Sharma offered around $500 million of UK public money to acquire part of an organisation in trouble, called OneWeb.
OneWeb is a commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation now with an element of Government ownership. It’s network of satellites doesn’t have a global positioning capability, like Galileo.
To get its satellite network up and running, an expensive business, OneWeb merged with French company Eutelstat. Today, if we look at the 2020 investment made with public money the financial situation doesn’t look good. That doesn’t mean to say that things will not turn around in future years[3].
The Times newspaper has taken a nationalist view of the circumstance[4]. It’s a point that the intellectual property is not in the hands of the UK Government, but the investment could still turn out to be a useful long-term commercial bet. It’s gambling with public money.
As an aside, I’ve been looking at buying a new dishwasher for the kitchen. It’s made me aware of a capability that I had no idea had been developed. Namely, the connection of dishwashers via the web. I think this is what is called the Internet of Things (IoT). So, imagine that, British dishwashers connected by space as a Brexit potential benefit.
However, if there’s a change in the UK Government’s political direction after the next General Election there’s a strong possibility that the UK will return to the EU’s Galileo programme with some manner of partnership. When we get to 2026, we may look back on the decade behind as a vacuum, much like the vacuum of space. A time when an uncertain direction cost a great deal.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-involvement-in-the-eu-space-programme
[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-scraps-plan-to-build-global-satellite-navigation-system-to-replace-galileo/
[3] https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/oneweb-uks-gamble-satellite-startup-pay-off
[4] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/656bd77c-c106-47c3-840b-674e9efc4f0e
John Vincent 