On 31 December 2024, Eutelsat experienced a “temporary, 48-hour outage” of its Eutelsat OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, the Paris-headquartered satellite operator reports this morning.
“The root cause was identified as a software issue within the ground segment,” Eutelsat says in a statement.
“Eutelsat was fully mobilized and worked with the vendor to restore full service, while maintaining a constant dialogue with affected customers. The constellation is operating nominally once again.”
Just as the recent string of geostationary (GEO) satellite anomalies brought into stark relief the value of multi-orbit connectivity solutions, so too does this and other recent LEO network outages, a point highlighted by industry veteran and ThinKom Solutions CTO Bill Milroy during a recent interview with Runway Girl Network.
“Certainly GEO has had some issues, but I want to point out LEO also has had outages. When you do a software upload to a LEO constellation, the good news is you have thousands of satellites. The bad news is you have thousands of satellites and they’re all taking the same upload. I mean, there have been global outages of LEO constellations I can think of. So when that goes out, you’re out globally,” noted Milroy.
He also noted that airline executives who participated in the 2024 APEX TECH conference in Los Angeles expressed an interest in both multi-orbit and multi-constellation solutions to ensure resiliency.
In aviation, multiple satellite operators and aero ISPs are pursuing multi-orbit inflight connectivity solutions.
Eutelsat OneWeb LEO service distribution partners Intelsat and Panasonic Avionics are offering multi-orbit inclusive of GEO for their nextgen IFC hardware, with both making material gains of late.
SES — which is in line to acquire Intelsat — is pursuing multi-orbit Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)/GEO IFC, and expects to launch the service shortly through its aero ISP partners.
Even Viasat, a long-time proponent of high-capacity GEO-focused IFC, is in advanced talks to acquire capacity from Telesat for its forthcoming Lightspeed LEO constellation.
And in acquiring Satcom Direct, Gogo says it intends to offer solutions that integrate LEO and GEO satcom with its air-to-ground network in North America.
Related Articles:
Featured image credited to OneWeb
