Astranis, a satellite internet startup based in San Francisco, said Wednesday that its first spacecraft completed a milestone test and will start bringing broadband access to rural Alaskans as soon as mid-June.
It’s a major step for the company, which was founded in 2015 by John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko. By taking a first principles approach to satellite development, the pair bet that they could make a smaller, cheaper spacecraft for geosynchronous orbit – the orbit farthest from Earth and arguably the most inhospitable – and use them to bring internet to millions, or even billions, of people around the globe.
Their bet is paying off: the company’s first satellite, Arcturus, launched on a Falcon Heavy at the end of April. Within less than two minutes after separating from the rocket’s upper stage, the spacecraft started sending telemetry and tracking data to Astranis engineers. From there, the satellite connected to an interne...
