OQ Technology has signed an agreement with Spaceflight Inc. to procure launch capacity and provide associated launch and integration services for the company’s first batch of six satellites from their planned constellation of more than 60 spacecraft.
The agreement allots launch capacity and reservation on combined rideshare and dedicated launches in a fast and agile approach while offering OQ Technology the necessary flexibility in price, volume and time of launch. The agreement concerns the deployment of OQ’s Batch-1 for favorable pricing and the right to bid for future Batch-2 deployment.
OQ has developed an innovative solution extending cellular 5G Internet-of-Things (IoT) coverage beyond the cell tower, enabling mobile operators to extend their services to areas they were previously unable to reach as well as offering seamless roaming connectivity for mobile assets in remote and rural areas at a fraction of the price of what today’s satellite operators charge.
In 2019, OQ managed to test cellular Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) using commercial LEO smallsats with a “direct-to-satellite” communication. The technology enables mobile users to roam seamlessly between terrestrial and satellite networks. Unlike other services, NB-IoT meets the global open standard established by 3GPP and has an existing worldwide ecosystem of mobile operators, vendors, chip manufacturers, and users.
OQ is planning the gradual deployment of a global network of more than 60 satellites in multiple batches to enable fast scalability and global coverage. The spacecraft will be a combination of owned satellites, hosted payloads, or software deployment on other companies’ regenerative payload satellites. OQ is planning another additional launch of one satellite, working with Spaceflight to manage the launch.
Spaceflight has successfully launched more than 350 customer payloads across 37 launches across eight different launch vehicles, including the Falcon 9, Electron, PSLV, and Vega. Spaceflight’s diverse portfolio of launches offers customers a variety of rideshare, dedicated and last mile delivery launch options to meet their unique mission needs.
“Spaceflight developed a very attractive and flexible plan that allows us to deploy the network easily and in a record time. This helps us to meet the growing market demand of cellular IoT globally. The first Batch of satellites will address latency-tolerant IoT/M2M users that need Narrowband IoT connectivity, followed by gradual constellation deployment for critical near-real time applications,” said Omar Qaise, CEO of OQ Technology.
