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The Space Daily article Astrocast signs contract with GomSpace Sweden to deliver propulsion systems says in part

GomSpace Sweden - a subsidiary of GomSpace Group AB, has received an order from Astrocast to deliver a propulsion system for each of the 10 nanosatellites composing the first orbital plane of the new Astrocast constellation. The value of this order is 450.000 EUR and delivery of the propulsion systems will be in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019.

The Swiss company Astrocast is one of the leading pioneers in deploying nanosatellites to create a global Internet of Things (IoT) network. This will be the first propulsion system operating on a constellation of 3U cubesats.

This contract is a follow-on order after delivery of propulsion systems for the two precursor satellites that will be launched this fall. The system will allow Astrocast to ensure a more rapid deployment of each satellite in its intended position as well as collision avoidance maneuvers.

Question: How will this satellite constellation enable IoT (Internet of Things) devices and applications? Will this IoT network only deal with "things" in orbit, or will my coffee maker and thermostat be communicating with them some day?

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Their website currently says:

Thanks to its polar orbits, our network of nanosatellites covers and scans the entire surface of the earth. Wherever your assets are, a view of the sky is enough to stay connected.... Astrocast enables transmission of 1KB/day from any region on the earth.

So that implies earth-to-satellite communication. This spacenews article talks about L-band and very small transmitters:

At the terminal level we have something extremely simple to reduce the cost and power level. We have a very small terminal basically the size of a stamp, and the antenna is also about the same size, so it can be used with a battery or a local power source and integrated into any type of outdoor equipment.

It'll be interesting to see how it does compared to NB-IOT.

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  • $\begingroup$ Great! This looks quite interesting; ground to satellite IoT seems counterintuitive (to me) at first, since I usually associate IoT with low power. I'll read up on this further, later today, thanks! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Jul 24, 2018 at 4:25
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    $\begingroup$ agree. they talk about it being async, presumably one-way, but I agree, it must take a pretty good chunk of power. The iridium analog is the easiest for my to understand, even with the problems with the gen1 iridium the SPOT could send super-low data rate on batteries. $\endgroup$
    – tedder42
    Jul 24, 2018 at 18:31

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