Dutch space approval for 50 IoT satellites
May 9, 2018
By Chris Forrester
Magnitude Space, recently renamed as Hiber Global, has received approval from the Radiocommunications Agency Netherlands to launch a fleet of up to 50 small nano-satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) applications.
Hiber has its R&D in Delft (Netherlands) and its HQ in Amsterdam. It was established in 2016 and is part-supported by the European Space Agency.
Hiber describes itself as the ‘Low Power Global Area Network’ but also as a user of “Teeny-weeny satellites, [with] massive coverage”. The satellite will “skim” the Earth at 600 kms high, and “create a global network of super-efficient, super affordable satellites.”
The first pair of its planned fleet will launch this summer (on an Indian rocket), and grow to a total of 48 satellites over the next 5 years. The system can handle ‘messages’ of up to 1250 bits, and uses the 400 MHz frequency band on the ground and S-band for satellite connectivity.