(September 4, 2023 – New York City) – Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) today announced the beginning of Eternal Orbit, a multi-week campaign featuring videos, podcasts, live online conversations and a new issue of SSPI’s digital magazine, The Orbiter. The campaign explores the major value and proven business case that GEO continues to offer in a satellite business where LEO and MEO have attracted massive investment and customer interest but have yet to demonstrate long-term commercial viability. Eternal Orbit is underwritten by Hughes Network Systems.
The campaign begins this week with a live conversation from SSPI-WISE (SSPI Women in Space Engagement): The Enduring Value of GEO. The conversation, which will take place on September 7, will feature four women from diverse companies with a focus on GEO missions to bring us up to speed on new innovations in the field. Geo 2.0, the podcast series of Eternal Orbit, will launch next Monday on September 11. New Eternal Orbit content will be published weekly at www.sspi.org/cpages/eternal-orbit.
“Our attention is always drawn to bright, shiny toys – and Starlink and OneWeb are the brightest and shiniest so far,” said executive director Robert Bell. “In this campaign, we salute the original orbit, the eternal orbit of GEO and the needs it will uniquely continue to meet today and in the decades to come.”
About Eternal Orbit
There is a place in space where no atmosphere reaches, where satellites are invisible because they fly so high, and where they can hover magically over a single spot on the Earth’s surface. It is called geosynchronous orbit or GEO, because it synchronizes with the turning Earth. It is the first orbit, the oldest one in continuous use by human beings. For decades, it has brought the world television and phone calls, internet and business networks, and communications for military bases and humanitarian missions, remote mines and ships at sea.
The first GEO satellite flew 60 years ago, but the value of GEO orbit keeps flying higher, even as low-flying spacecraft fill the skies. GEO is the only place in space where we can send a single digital signal and have it reach millions of sites. With no atmosphere to slow them down, satellites in GEO can last for more than a decade. GEO is getting smarter, as software-defined payloads are launched that can change their mission on the fly. And GEO is betting bigger, as companies put spacecraft the size of buses into GEO capable of delivering high-speed broadband to millions of customers, while innovation in ground systems squeezes more capacity out of the same bandwidth every year.
You can learn more about the Eternal Orbit campaign on SSPI’s website.
About SSPI
Founded in 1983, Space & Satellite Professionals International (www.sspi.org) is on a mission to make the space and satellite industry one of the world’s best at attracting and engaging the talent that powers innovation. The space and satellite business has never seen a time of greater experimentation and disruption than we see today. Investment is the fuel for transformation, but people are the engine. SSPI helps the industry attract, develop and retain the talented people it needs to keep the engine turning. People who connect through high-profile events and gain recognition from prestigious awards. People who rely on SSPI for a broader understanding of the industry as much as for individual networking and career mentoring. From young people seeking a career path to industry veterans with wisdom to share, SSPI connects them all.
Talent, investment and opportunity flow to industries that make a difference. SSPI is the only organization that also promotes the enormous value of space and satellite through dramatic stories of our technologies and companies making a better world. Those stories overturn misconceptions about the industry that hold it back. They inspire our people and attract new ones to the industry. They help justify investment and give new customers a reason to care about our services and products. Through the stories we tell and the people we serve, SSPI inspires the growth of the $1 trillion space economy of the future.
For More Information
Victoria Krisman
Communications Manager
Space & Satellite Professionals International
vkrisman@sspi.org