LeoSat Responds to National Science Foundation RFI for Antarctic Broadband Network
A New satellite constellation venture LeoSat to provide a unique solution for data communications in challenging Polar regions of the world
Washington, DC, June 14th 2016 – LeoSat Enterprises, an emerging company with plans to launch a constellation of up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites that will provide the fastest, most secure and widest coverage data network in the world, has announced it has been invited by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to respond to their Request for Information (RFI) for broadband data communications requirements in the South Pole and throughout the Antarctic continent.
Data communication to and from the Polar regions is challenging and expensive. Building cable networks is hardly feasible from an economic perspective and satellite connections using the traditional GEO arc come at low speed, high costs and operational challenges. For bulk data there is no viable solution and all too often the data needs to be physically carried out to its destination. For research communities this causes serious delays and additional costs.
NSF is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Under a Presidential mandate, NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, through which it coordinates all U.S. research on the Southernmost Continent and the surrounding ocean, funds scientists at institutions nationwide to carry out fieldwork and provides the logistical support for that fieldwork.
While the NSF’s two RFIs have been out for some time and suspense dates have passed, NSF has continued its market research information gathering for formulating its plans. Having noted the public announcements by LeoSat, NSF has reached out to LeoSat with a request to respond to the the RFIs to allow LeoSat’s information to be included in NSF’s planning. With the LeoSat network, the satellites will be placed in polar orbits, making the Antarctic region one of the best served regions in the world with fiber-like speeds and low latency.
LeoSat’s CEO, Mark Rigolle, said: “We are excited to be singled out by such a prominent agency as the National Science Foundation. We take that as a strong endorsement of our plans to offer global, low-latency, high-throughput satellite capacity, using a Low Earth Orbit constellation. As indeed our satellites are flown in polar planes, there is good fit with NSF’s requirements. In addition, the large data-transmission requirement, which, as per the two RFI’s is in the terabytes per day, can easily be delivered by the constellation that we plan to launch starting 2019. As such, we hope to work with the NSF in an effort to solve their bandwidth requirements in this challenging part of the world”.
When fully operational, LeosSat will provide point-to-point data connections to and from anywhere on earth without the need for any terrestrial landings or transport. The data will be able to travel in its native form while encrypted and secured from end to end. LeoSat has completed a feasibility study with Thales Alenia Space for its constellation design and deployment and is currently working with them on the next phase of development.
About LeoSat Enterprises
LeoSat Enterprises was established in 2013 to leverage the latest developments in satellite communications technologies to develop and launch a new low-earth-orbit satellite constellation which will provide the first commercially available, business grade, extremely high-speed and secure data service worldwide. With up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites in the constellation LeoSat is the first company to have all of the High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in the constellation connected together in networked HTS satellites, connected to each other and to select established sectors on the planet.
Based in Washington DC, LeoSat is currently working with Thales Alenia Space for the low-earth-orbit constellation of between 78 and 108 Ka-band communications satellites. Once operational, the constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly secure communications and bandwidth for business operations in the telecom backhaul, Oil & Gas exploration, Maritime and international business markets. Launch of the constellation is expected in 2018 or 2019. www.leosat.com
CONTACT:
Melanie Dickie
MPD Communications
Tel: +31 6 14 22 97 62
Email: Melanie.dickie@leosat.com
LeoSat Appoints Diederik Kelder as SVP, Corporate and Business Development
New satellite constellation venture LeoSat will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly secure data communications to business users around the world
Washington, DC, March 7th 2016
– LeoSat Enterprises, an emerging company with plans to launch a constellation of up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites that will provide the fastest, most secure and widest coverage data network in the world, has announced the appointment of Diederik Kelder as Senior Vice President, Corporate and Business Development. In this role, Diederik will be responsible for all business development activities at LeoSat.
Diederik Kelder has over 20 years' experience in the satellite communications industry, which includes working for a number of the most prominent satellite operators in the areas of strategic planning, commercial planning and business development. Prior to joining LeoSat Enterprises, Diederik worked at SES, where as Vice President Business Development Asia he led a series of initiatives including partnerships and space and ground asset development. In addition, Kelder has previous experience of working for a new satellite start up. As VP Business Planning, he set up and rolled out New Skies Satellites' strategy, business planning and revenue forecasting functions and was a core team member on a variety of corporate transactions including IPO and acquisition by private equity firm Blackstone.
A native of the Netherlands, Diederik began his satellite communications career at Eutelsat, one of the worlds leading satellite operators, holding the position of Marketing Manager in the then newly created Commercial Department. He holds a Masters degree in Physics from Utrecht University in The Netherlands as well as a Diploma in General Management from INSEAD in Paris.
LeoSat's CEO, Mark Rigolle, said: "Diederik is a very experienced satellite industry executive across a number of fields that are extremely relevant for a young company like LeoSat. He has a deep understanding of developing strategic and market opportunities. As we build our core team, he will be instrumental in formulating the technical and commercial advantages of the LeoSat constellation to potential strategic stakeholders and the business market. "
Diederik commented: "What attracted me to LeoSat is that it was conceived from a customer need perspective. What really excites me is that we use the best satellite technology has on offer to, not only carry large data volumes premise-to-premise, but in many scenarios do so with lower latencies than terrestrial solutions; simply because light travels faster through space than through fiber. I am looking forward to working with Mark and the LeoSat team, our customers and partners to bring this to market."
When fully operational, LeoSat will provide point-to-point data connections to and from anywhere on earth without the need for any terrestrial landings or transport. The data will be able to travel in its native form while encrypted and secured from end to end. LeoSat has completed a feasibility study with Thales Alenia Space for its constellation design and deployment and is currently working with them on the next phase of development.
Diederik Kelder will be outlining LeoSat's game-changing technology with all its advantages for data communication at the forthcoming CABSAT event in Dubai.
GVF Satellite Hub Summit @ CABSAT 2016, Wednesday 9th March, 15:00, Session 4: Constellations for Connectivity: A New Dawn for Low Earth Orbit Solutions.About LeoSat Enterprises
LeoSat Enterprises was established in 2013 to leverage the latest developments in satellite communications technologies to develop and launch a new low-earth-orbit satellite constellation which will provide the first commercially available, business grade, extremely high-speed and secure data service worldwide.
With up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites in the constellation LeoSat is the first company to have all of the High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in the constellation connected together in networked HTS satellites, connected to each other and to select established sectors on the planet.
Based in Washington DC, LeoSat is currently working with Thales Alenia Space for the low-earth-orbit constellation of between 78 and 108 Ka-band communications satellites. Once operational, the constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly secure communications and bandwidth for business operations in the telecom backhaul, Oil & Gas exploration, Maritime and international business markets. Launch of the constellation is expected in 2018 or 2019. www.leosat.com
CONTACT:
Melanie Dickie
MPD Communications
Tel: +31 6 14 22 97 62
Email: Melanie.dickie@leosat.com
LeoSat Names
Ronald van der Breggen
as Chief Commercial Officer
New satellite constellation venture LeoSat will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly secure data communications to business users around the world
Washington, DC, January 18th 2016 –
LeoSat Enterprises, an emerging company with plans to launch a constellation of up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites that will provide the fastest, most secure and widest coverage data network in the world, has announced the appointment of Ronald van der Breggen as Chief Commercial Officer. In this position Ronald will be responsible for managing the global sales and marketing operations of LeoSat.
Van der Breggen has more than 20 years of experience in the telecom and satellite industries. Prior to serving at SES, where as Vice President he was globally responsible for back-office sales and customer contract- and service implementations, van der Breggen worked for Dutch telecom incumbent KPN and later KPNQwest where he oversaw the design, roll-out, marketing and sales of all IP services on EuroRings, a newly-built pan-European fiber network. Mark Rigolle, CEO of LeoSat said: "Ronald brings a myriad of skills to our organization and most importantly the experience of successfully running a sales organization of a global satellite operator. He will be crucial in LeoSat's continued progress toward achieving our goal of delivering the only viable satellite solution for enterprise data – responding to specific customer needs which are not being met by today's technology. His experience in uniting all departments around the customer requirements will be a key component in building our customer-centric organization", he added.
Ronald commented: "Having worked in both the fiber and satellite industries, I know firsthand the limitation for data on satellites as compared to fiber. With LeoSat this will now change forever; it brings opportunities for customers they never had before and I'm really excited to help shape that future".
When fully operational, LeoSat will provide point-to-point data connections to and from anywhere on earth without the need for any terrestrial landings or transport. The data will be able to travel in its native form while encrypted and secured from end to end. LeoSat has just completed a feasibility study with Thales Alenia Space for its constellation design and deployment and is currently working with them on the next phase of development.
A native of the Netherlands, van der Breggen began his telecom career at KPN, rising to the position of VP IP Services. From 2003 to 2013, he served as Vice President Customer Account Management at SES, one of the world's leading satellite operators. Ronald has since undertaken a number of consultancy assignments. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Nijenrode University as well as a Masters in Business Telecommunications from the Technical University of Delft, both in the Netherlands. ENDS
About LeoSat Enterprises
LeoSat Enterprises was established in 2013 to leverage the latest developments in satellite communications technologies to develop and launch a new low-earth-orbit satellite constellation which will provide the first commercially available, business grade, extremely high-speed and secure data service worldwide.
With up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites in the constellation LeoSat is the first company to have all of the High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in the constellation connected together in networked HTS satellites, connected to each other and to select established sectors on the planet.
Based in Washington DC, LeoSat is currently working with Thales Alenia Space for the low-earth-orbit constellation of between 78 and 108 Ka-band communications satellites. Once operational, the constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly secure communications and bandwidth for business operations in the telecom backhaul, Oil & Gas exploration, Maritime and international business markets. Launch of the constellation is expected in 2018 or 2019. www.leosat.com
###
CONTACT:
Melanie Dickie
MPD Communications
Tel: +31 6 14 22 97 62
Email: melaniedickie@yahoo.co.uk
Interview with Mark Rigolle
New LeoSat CEO Talks Vision for Company
Mark Rigolle LeoSat
Mark Rigolle, CEO of LeoSat. Photo: LeoSat [Via Satellite 09-16-2015]
LeoSat, a burgeoning satellite operator with plans to build a constellation of 78 to 108 small, High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), has appointed Mark Rigolle as its new CEO. The announcement comes after its former CEO Vern Fotheringham departed after only six months with the company.
Rigolle guided O3b Networks in raising $1.2 billion to build and launch its first eight satellites, and also co-founded Kacific — a company planning to launch a Ka-band HTS spacecraft serving the Pacific market. In an interview with Via Satellite, Rigolle discussed his leadership style, the state of LeoSat, and the company's objectives on the way to launching its constellation.
Via Satellite: Given your experience with other HTS systems, what would you say is the most important thing you learned that you bring to the LeoSat team?
Rigolle: For me it's the attitude of a startup. It doesn't matter if you want to build an app, a satellite constellation, a molecule that cures Alzheimer's or whatever. You need to get the basics right. You need to make sure your timetable for development is right, that there is rigor in the planning and execution of producing whatever you are making. You have to continue to make sure you are listening to customers and future customers, you need to get the funding lined up, and you need to transition to becoming cash-flow positive.
Via Satellite: Are there any changes you anticipate making at LeoSat under your leadership?
Rigolle: My leadership style is not one of "big ego come in and change things." What I found is a project that is becoming a company and, like any startup that I've ever worked at, a lot of stuff still needs to happen. We will do that as a team and with respect to everyone working there as well as both existing and future shareholders. Don't expect sweeping change, but expect a lot of hard work and very concrete results.
Via Satellite: Can you give an update on LeoSat as it evolves from an idea to a company?
Rigolle: The state we are in is that we have a situation whereby we've received confirmation from Thales Alenia Space that from a technical point of view, this can be built to the specs that we need to really offer the solution that we are trying to bring to market. We've done the market research that is necessary to get comfortable; there is a market out there at the price point we are thinking about. What we now have to do is build an organization, which is roughly more or less the same kind of task I had at O3b, and line up the financing.
Timing is important. In O3b we were raising the funding in 2009 to 2010 just after Lehman Brothers and all that. It was probably not the best possible timing to raise $1.2 billion. Now markets are hopefully more open than that, especially since we will be raising larger amounts. The phase we are entering now is where we turn the project into a company. We need to start raising serious equity. We are going after more institutional money.
Via Satellite: When complete, LeoSat is to provide fully operational data connections anywhere on Earth without the need for terrestrial landings or transport. Can you explain how this would be done?
Rigolle: If you are going from one continent to another continent over our system, you'll be able to do that faster than you can direct via fiber. Terrestrial systems are a patchwork. It's not the undersea cable that is the problem, it is the fact that if you have a landing point in California and a landing point in Japan, to get to that landing point you have to go through a few Points of Presence (PoPs), and that makes it difficult to get the fastest possible speeds. Our network will be up in Los Angeles, and will use inter-satellite links using optics. This is existing technology that's been tried and tested — it's just never been done this way.
Via Satellite: Do you have any demo satellites planned ahead of the 2019 to 2020 launch frame for the larger constellation?
Rigolle: One of the things that I'm personally expecting people to say is that "oh this is science fiction," or "that's never been proven." Certain large GEO operators even wrote white papers on why O3b would never work. But it does.
We will prove what we say we can do. The idea is that we will launch two satellites and demonstrate that it works. And because we are in a fixed-plane polar orbit, we will target certain applications that don't require contiguous coverage and could be ok with data being sent up to the satellites and coming down somewhere else later on. I'm thinking of scientific research at the poles, for instance, or seismic data being produced at the poles. That's the kind of stuff we will be able to do with our first few satellites. We will be providing a proof of concept to those who said this can't be done, and we will start generating — not huge amounts — but some revenue quite early on. Then we will add more satellites to offer more incremental coverage.
Whereas O3b has coverage over the equator and creeps up north and south from that, … our coverage is built at the poles. That's where the satellites come closest to each other. As we add satellites to our different planes, our coverage creeps down from the North Pole and up from the South Pole. We will close the coverage gap at the poles once we have 78 satellites.
Via Satellite: From LEO you will have a latency advantage. What kind of latency do you anticipate having?
Rigolle: It's just a matter of distance. O3b is four times closer than GEO. We are five times closer to Earth than O3b in their MEO orbit, about 1,400 kilometers. You are talking about a round-trip time of a matter of tens of milliseconds. If you add in a few hops satellite to satellite, then you can add a few more tens of milliseconds. You should be able to get from Tokyo to New York in less than 100 milliseconds, which you cannot do with fiber and no satellite system can.
Via Satellite: Vern Fotheringham mentioned LeoSat would very likely be a customer of Kymeta (his former company). Is that something LeoSat is still looking at?
Rigolle: It is in any satellite operator's interest to ensure that there is diversity and competition in provisioning their ground system. So it makes no sense at all to go exclusive. What makes sense for us is for companies like Kymeta and Phasor — and maybe more — to continue to develop their products, get price points down, performance up, and go to sell in an open competitive market.
We are looking to build an ecosystem of suppliers around our solution where everyone will make money if they have a good product at the right price point and where the customers ultimately benefit.
Interview with Cliff Anders
Cliff Anders, Chairman & Founder at LeoSat, LLC
September 9, 2015 | Interview By Carlos Placido for SatCom Post
SP: Please provide a summary of your professional background and current responsibilities at LeoSat. What drove you and Phil Marlar to fund LeoSat?
Anders: Phil and I spent many years working with Schlumberger in several different capacities. I was in R&D and then senior management of technology teams. Most projects I worked on involved data and voice systems in harsh environs. The lack of availability of sufficient data networks for Schlumberger’s wide activities was always a problem. At one time, SLB Oil-Field Services had their own satellite program, which was sold to Harris. Phil worked in a different part of Schlumberger, but was certainly aware of the company’s ever growing data needs. When Phil and I left Schlumberger, we teamed up on a couple of businesses and continued to develop data communications systems. We finally ended up with a company in Florida that is working with the Cruise Industry, to help solve their need for a better solution than the 2-10Mbs GEO Satellite services. We developed a near shore (out to about 50-60miles depending on base station height) high speed, high-performance solution.
In meetings with each of the large cruise lines, we continued to hear the identical requirements. They all wanted a truly robust high performance, reliable worldwide network that worked the same everywhere in the world. If they had such a system, we heard many kinds of activities they would like to deploy.
So we were in another large industry that had very much the same needs as the ones that Schlumberger had been seeking. We evaluated the existing satellite systems and the announced systems that had not yet come online. We determined that even after the newest systems were fully operational they would not meet the requirements of these industries.
We set out to qualify and quantify the market that existed, and would exist, if we could provide the functionality and performance, these industries were seeking. I had been working with investors for several years after leaving Schlumberger.
We put together a package and obtained the funding necessary to investigate the opportunity.
We then put out a bid for a marketing company to perform the analysis necessary to provide a determination if there was, in fact, a market for what we had in mind. After a process taking about four months, NSR provided the survey results. The results not only found that what we had in mind was viable for the markets we had identified, but that there were two additional large markets that would also find such an offering appealing. The fundamental features and capabilities were common across all four markets. Armed with this information we sought experts in the satellite industry to help us with the technology hurdles. We worked on two designs of the type network we thought would be best and we continue that work today. We have filed an early patent on part of it and will file a second patent in the next two months.
We have been very successful in meeting the right people within the industry to help guide us to our goal. Our first engagement was with Professor D.K. Sachdev. I had asked Phil to see if he could locate a true satellite industry insider who had a good reputation. Phil found DK, and we have never looked back. DK has been an inspiration to all of us and provided the guided hand through the industry. He has also been able to arrange key meetings with key industry players. DK is amazingly as up to date on both the technologies and the businesses as anyone we have met. He has and continues to provide sage advice and analysis.
SP: Overview of the planned satellite constellation: Number of satellites, orbits, altitude, frequency band, throughput per satellite, ISLs, satellite redundancy, latency, etc.
Anders: Our constellation will consist of up to 108 satellites, although we will be able to start services well before reaching that total. We are in an LEO orbit around 1400Km’s in altitude and using Ka band. Our satellites are linked with high-performance ISL’s and we are starting with seven gateways strategically located around the world. We will have spare satellites both in orbit and on the ground. Our “per satellite throughput” is substantially different than the existing satellite systems. We have the unique ability to transport every bit of data we can theoretically receive from our clients off of every satellite simultaneously. Through a combination of the ISL’s and Gateways, there is no blocking, bottleneck or capacity problem on our satellites. Each satellite has the ability to transmit and receive just over 20Gbs, all of which can be terminated.
We also will provide extremely low latency and thus high-performance networking. Since we don’t use a bent pipe architecture, we measure latency by how many hops the client’s data must pass to its destination. We project being able to carry high-bandwidth data from New York to Tokyo with a latency of under 140ms RTT. That is faster than the fastest fiber routes in existence today.
We have found that the numbers used by some are just the sum of their client beams. However, they do not take into account that they have no method to transport anywhere near that level of data through their gateway radio/antennas. Therefore, the word “throughput” isn’t being taken literally. In our case, it is.
SP: At what stage in the planning phase is the constellation and when do you expect the system to be launched and operational?
Anders: We are moving into the second phase of our project with making some final vendor selections and finalizing our last design issues. During the feasibility stage, we came to a couple of areas where there was more than one way to accomplish what we wanted. We are evaluating the options in those areas and will make the determinations with our vendor partners in the coming months.
Our schedule at this time is to have our first satellite in space in late 2017 or early 2018. This satellite will not have all the solutions on board, but will give us an opportunity test, many of our systems and importantly our ground terminals. The way we have designed the system, we will be able to start providing services in the Polar Regions with just a few satellites in operation. As we move through our deployments, we will see our areas of continuous coverage grow from the poles toward the equator. We are fully operational at 78 satellites. At this time, we are projecting to be fully operational in late 2019 or early 2020.
SP: Unlike other LEO-HTS projects with plans to provide ubiquitous residential broadband services, LeoSat has a clear B2B focus. What are the primary target markets?
Anders: Our targeted markets are Maritime, Oil & Gas, Telecom Backhaul and Enterprise Data Services. However, we do not see ourselves as competing with the existing HTS providers. Our services start from a minimum of 50Mbs and range all the way to a special setup of 7.2Gbs for a single customer. We can maintain that rate from any two points around the globe.
We see our services as moving the needle on what is possible with satellite data systems. We are including features that are specific to each of the target markets mentioned. We are building what we have been asked by industry participants to build.
NSR was a key to helping us understand the markets, and we have taken it from there drilling down in what each market would like to see in their HTS solution.
SP: The satellite industry had failed attempts in the past to deploy Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations of communication satellites. Given the industry´s renewed interest in LEO constellations, now with high-throughput payloads (LEO-HTS), what has changed in terms of technology and market readiness that makes these projects plausible this time?
Anders: The previous attempts, in our opinion, were ahead of themselves with the technologies of the time. None of them failed due to operational issues; they failed due to costs and funding. They were imagined more along the lines of the “build it, and they will come” philosophy. We took a different track, by identifying our markets and customers, long before the design. Once we understood our markets and customer’s requests, we set out to fulfill as much of those requests as we saw being technically feasible and cost justified today.
One of the major changes that have made an LEO constellation more viable today, is the coming of age of electronic bean steering antenna systems. The cost, maintenance and space required for mechanical dishes to follow very rapidly moving satellite was always an issue for the LEO’s. If a customer absolutely had the critical need for the system to always remain operational, it required a minimum of three of the mechanical dishes. To provide the “make before break requirement” of a continuous data connection, you always had one of the dishes connected and one moving to catch the next satellite. The mechanical dishes require maintenance due to the moving parts. A third dish is necessary to run, while one of the others is being serviced.
The electronic beam steering antennas change this equation in a very favorable way and are one of the key changes that have made the LEO’s more viable today.
We are quite cognizant of the other HTS solutions, and we expect they will find their markets. However, we measure our network’s performance on a different scale than the other solutions are using. We simply have a distinctive focus and a distinctive model for HTS services.
We are not seeking to serve millions of customers. Our focus is on a few thousand business customers.
SP: Since there are no LEO-HTS constellations yet deployed, we tend to view market potential via traditional GEO lenses (FSS & HTS) but could LEO-HTS systems serve, or even create new markets not addressed by GEO satcom?
Anders: A short answer is, definitely yes. There are several solutions we are aware of that have never even thought of using satellites due to the latency, reliability and lack of ability to be truly interactive. We see the satellite data market as growing as industries and markets realize that there is a new high performance network available. We also see that we can offer a great deal more security on our data paths than can be found on terrestrial solutions. The market will be driven by specific needs. If you need to move large data very securely around the world on an interactional basis, we are your new solution. If you need interactional control of something anywhere in the world, we are your solution. We see several other deployable technologies that will make use of our true worldwide reach with a high-performance secured network comparable to, but in some cases superior to, terrestrial solutions.
SP: The industry is increasingly putting focus on the ecosystem. For a successful LeoSat service, what are the key elements that should be aligned at both technical and commercial levels? What is the role of the CPE and developments in electronically-steered, flat-panel antennae?
Anders: As I answered in a previous question, we see the electronically steered antennas as being one of the key elements that will change how people look at the LEO solutions. They are a real game changer.
We believe that having the confidence in on board processing is also one of the elements that will start changing how satellites are operated. There has been enormous progress made in some of the sensors, cameras and other payloads with putting high tech electronics in space. However, the industry has shied away from doing much with the electronics on the satellites themselves. We have certainly heard the industry philosophy of leaving the satellites dumb, as “what can break, will break.” We just don’t believe we can stay in that mode forever and make the progress that is needed to grow the industry. We have come a long way in the reliability of electronics and processing today. There have been great strides in low power requirement processors who are quite powerful. The mass and costs of computing power have also vastly changed over the years. We have to take advantage of these advancements to stay relevant and grow.
SP: What are your views about integrating LEO-HTS and Earth Observation (EO) capabilities? It appears that integration could find capital and service synergies that could expand and diversify market addressability. Is EO being considered by LeoSat?
Anders: It has been in our discussions, and we are still evaluating how we might participate in this area. Stay tuned.
LeoSat Names Veteran Satellite Industry Executive Mark Rigolle New CEO LeoSat
Washington, D.C., September 14, 2015 - LeoSat Enterprises, Inc., a company launching the first networked HTS satellites in low-earth-orbit constellation has named industry veteran Mark Rigolle as the company’s new chief executive office.
Rigolle has more than 22 years experience in the telecom and satellite industries, including as CEO of O3B Networks, where he led the effort to raise $1.2 billion in funding and launch the first eight satellites of that company's new constellation. Most recently, Rigolle served as advisor to a number of satellite operators and private-equity funds, as well co-founded Kacific, a project to deliver satellite broadband to isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean.
"Mark's strong history of integrity, business success, and industry experience will be crucial components in LeoSat's continued progress toward achieving our mission," said Cliff Anders, President and co-founder of LeoSat. "He brings a known history of collaborative management that includes close communications with the vendor partners of the companies he has run."
LeoSat's other co-founder, Phil Marlar, added, "Under Mark's leadership, LeoSat will be focused on our core markets and a very straightforward development path to our identified customer's requirements for the new constellation."
When fully operational, LeoSat will provide point to point data connections to and from anywhere on earth without the need of any terrestrial landings or transport. The data will be able to travel in its native form while encrypted and secured from end to end.
LeoSat has just completed a feasibility study with Thales Alenia Space for its constellation launch. LeoSat continues its work with Thales Alenia Space and is entering the next phase of development.
Thales Alenia Space welcomed Mark Rigolle's nomination as CEO of LeoSat.
"Thales Alenia Space, a key partner of LeoSat in the development of its constellation project, welcomes the announcement of the nomination of Mark Rigolle as its Chief Executive Officer," the company said. "The experience of Mark in the satellite and finance industry, satellite constellations, and the startup business will, for sure, be of great support to the LeoSat endeavor.
"Thales Alenia Space has been working on the LeoSat low-Earth orbit constellation since 2014 through a phase one contract that demonstrated the industrial feasibility and performance of the high-speed, low-latency, secured-data satellite system. We look forward to pursuing this positive momentum with Mark Rigolle and LeoSat."
A native of Belgium, Rigolle began his telecom career at Belgacom, rising to the position of General Manager of Strategic Planning and Mergers & Acquisitions. From 2004 to 2009, he served as Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Executive Committee of SES, one of the world's leading satellite operators. When SES acquired an interest in O3B Networks in 2010, Rigolle was appointed CEO of that company.
"I am excited to be joining LeoSat at the moment it is developing from a project to a fully operational company," Rigolle said. "LeoSat has formulated a unique proposition to address real market needs of business customers around the globe, utilizing key attributes of low latency, high throughput and security. I look forward to contributing my experience in leading a start-up through the critical stages of development and with working with each member of the LeoSat team and the Board of Directors."
About LeoSat Enterprises
LeoSat Enterprises was established in 2013 to leverage the latest developments in satellite communications technologies for its own satellite constellation and for its mobile, fixed, and portable ground segment equipment and services.
With up to 108 low-earth-orbit communications satellites in the constellation, LEOSAT is the first company to have all of the HTS satellites in the constellation connected together in networked HTS satellites, connected to each other and to select established sectors on the planet
Based in Washington, D.C., LeoSat is currently working with Thales Alenia Space for the low-earth-orbit constellation of between 78 and 108 Ka-band communications satellites. Once operational, the constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency and highly-secure communications and bandwidth to customers around the world. Launch of the constellation is expected in 2019 or 2020.
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CONTACT:
David Ortiz,
LeoSat Enterprises, Inc.
info@leosat.com
(202) 545-6377
www.leosat.com
