Global WiFi Coverage with a Polar Low-Earth-Orbit Satellite Network

Global communications, such as household high speed internet, mobile data, and cellular networks, are a keystone of today’s society. There is not, however, a single global communications platform that encompasses all three modern systems. Such a platform would revolutionize the telecommunication industry, connect the entire world population in a way impractical with cellular towers and fiber optics, and lay the foundation for installing similar systems for future bases on the Moon or Mars. Today, SpaceX, Boeing, and other corporations are researching the notion of such a communications platform based in low-Earth-orbit satellites. We model the astrodynamics of a polar-orbit variant of this platform that uniformly distributes high-speed internet across the planet with 1200 satellites. We also analyze the platform’s economic feasibility. We show that our satellites have orbital lifetimes that make it practical to cloak Earth in high speed internet. In addition, we show that the expense of installing our global-satellite network is less than 1% of the per capita revenue of existing WIFI systems.