The company is inviting engineers, industrial partners, academics, and research professionals to present innovative applications to make best use of its satellite constellation.
The company writes:
“The annual challenge aims to harness ideas that will continue to improve and transform satellite-based solutions, bringing forward new proposals for future LEO satellite and ground applications and technologies. OneWeb is looking for industrial partners from any sector, as well as students and research partners, to present proposals for how existing or new technology could be applied to build the LEO constellation-based applications of the future.”
Suggested areas for applications include telemedicine, crisis response, natural disaster monitoring, and data fusion.
Successful entrants (deadline 11 November) will receive the opportunity to collaborate with OneWeb and ESA on space-based applications.
“So far, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with a LEO satellite communications network,” said OneWeb’s Innovation Programme Lead, Maite Carreras.
“Last year’s challenge helped us to explore and accelerate key technologies for our future Gen-2 constellation, and this year we want to go one step further. This challenge is an extraordinary, maybe even a chance-in-a-lifetime, opportunity to bring to reality applications that can revolutionise the future of humanity.”
More information and an entry form is on the OneWeb site, with the deadline for entries being 11 November.
When will the OneWeb network be completed? The date is “fast approaching” says the company. Previously the company had hoped for its broadband services to be operational before the end of 2021 before that date drifted through 2022 and out to 2023.
Currently, OneWeb’s total in-orbit constellation stands at 428 satellites, which the company says is 66 percent of the planned fleet. It had planned to complete the constellation by launches at Baikonur, which have run into geopolitical trouble.
