Page 154 - Elana Freeland - Under an Ionized Sky

While the Australian telecom Singtel Optus Pty Limited combines geostationary satellite and
terrestrial networks to provide broadcast, mobile and Internet to Australia, New Zealand, and
Antarctica (and Operation Deep Freeze), Laser Light’s HALO integrates the existing
infrastructure of regional Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) providers in a SpaceCable system:

Laser Light plans to have 100 POPs [Points of Presence] around the world. In partnering with regional telecom
companies, the optical, hybrid satellite/terrestrial network promises to deliver data transmission rates up to 100 times
greater than conventional high-frequency satellite systems with the ability to distribute that data globally. . .While the
new system, which Laser Light has coined SpaceCable, is complicated, the tradeoff is mutually beneficial: the
network allows Optus to deliver more data at faster rates to more people while Laser Light gains access to more
undersea cable and fiber, thus enabling a more reliable network in the face of atmospherics [weather]. . .Laser Light’s
business model calls for a minimum of 65 percent of traffic traveling over the SpaceCable and 35 percent or less over
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terrestrial.

Satellite connection with the global fiber optic grid means enabling a laser optical
surveillance grid or web over the entire Earth. In 2013, China launched the quantum optical fiber
communication network project called the Beijing-Shanghai Line, the world’s first wide-area
fiber optic quantum private network. Joining it will be the first quantum communications
satellite. Because quantum technology is indivisible and cannot be cloned, it will be used for
secure transmissions. 70
Satellites are getting smaller and smaller. The 4” CubeSats (1–10 kg) mentioned in Chapter
4, along with pico satellites (0.1–1 kg) and femto satellites (0.1 kg) have come a long way since
the TV-sized “microsats” designed by artificial intelligence (AI) were launched in 2006. 71
Corporations like Media Development Investment Fund are using nano- and microsatellites to
draw every person on Earth into the telecom Web. Free unrestricted Internet access! Broadcast of
data over wide radio waves (datacasting)! Meanwhile, radar beams down everywhere.

Using a technique known as User Datagram Protocol (UDP) multitasking, which is the sharing of data between users
on a network, Outernet will beam information to users. Much like how you receive a signal on your television and
flick through channels, Outernet will broadcast the Internet to you and allow you to flick through certain websites. . .If
everything goes to plan, the Outernet project aims to ask NASA for permission to test the technology on the
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International Space Station.

Miniaturized satellites mean less expense, more takers, more space garbage, more
“programming” straight from space into the brain. Everyone, not just 60 percent of the planet, 73
is to be plugged in.
Space-based platforms like satellites can be armed with orbital bombardment missiles or
kinetics, or interceptor ASATs (anti-satellite weapons) like Brilliant Pebbles and Brilliant Eyes
for use against comsats, early warning sats, navsats, recon sats, military and civilian satellites, a
single satellite or satellite constellation, space-based laser systems and space stations. “Parasitic
satellites” contain nanometer-sized components that utilize microelectronics to attach to host
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satellites until remotely commanded to interfere with or destroy it. A “tractor beam” device
called the Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA) creates a specialized magnetic field that can pull
satellites into a fleet that moves together or “draw as well as repel satellites at the same time,
meaning it will hold a satellite at a distance and won’t allow it to move away or toward the
capture device.” 75
Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, remote sensing, electro-optical assault, orbital
bombardment, ASAT—it’s easy to see why satellite resilience and security, along with anti-
jamming and anti-radiation, is crucial to maintaining these pivotal Space Fence players.