A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned.

Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, already provides some services to the Canadian military, but wants to deepen the partnership as Canada looks to diversify defence contracts away from suppliers in the United States.

A proposal for Canada's Department of National Defence to join a French Ministry of Defence initiative involving Eutelsat was apparently raised by French President Emmanuel Macron with Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of last year's G7 summit in Alberta.

"We also give them the ability to not be under the control of a singular individual who could decide to disconnect the service for political or other reasons."

What van Dyke is referencing, more than anything else, are reports that Musk ordered Starlink switched off in Ukraine during a pivotal push by the Eastern European country to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022.

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[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I like the idea of Telesat getting their fingers out of their butties and getting their constellation up there.

I also dislike that the Government of Canada let it break away from being a crown.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 months ago

The telesat is made. It's in the queue to launch this year.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We’re going to have so many low orbit satellites in the air by the time this is over with that the sun will be blotted out. Global warming solved!

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I had heard it will be littered, and then a collision or explosion will create a debris field that starts taking other satellites out until that whole zone is a hazard to pass through.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 points 2 months ago

This isn't a long-term problem in LEO, and the higher orbits aren't very crowded.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is cool but it's so hard to be excited about the increasing likelihood of kessler syndrome

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Kessler risk from leo like starlink is negligible because everything falls to earth too quickly. It's the geostationary orbits where the risk is real and effectively permanent.

If every starlink blew up today, in 2 years or less the skies would be clear again.

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

2 years without weather data, without natural disaster monitoring, potentially destroying the ISS and whatever else, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars to replace. For the greed of 1 man. Fuck that.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think you are misunderstanding.

I'm saying its ok if every starlink blew up. It's fine. We still have geosynchronous satelites. The ISS is not that valuable and at the end of its life. We also have plane and ground based doppler radar.

The key point is an American tool of control and opression goes bye bye for a pittance and no lasting damage.

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

I think you underestimate how much vital infrastructure we have in LEO. I'd rather they just stopped sending more and waited for the current ones to crash down.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

Canada should not be using Starlink. Certainly not for military purposes. Canadians should not send them any money though either.

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

Yes. Absolutely. No-brainer.