Hubble Network plans massive satellite upgrade to create global Bluetooth layer

Hubble Network’s satellite-powered Bluetooth community is getting a giant improve. 

The Seattle-based startup, which goals to convey to enterprises what Apple’s Discover My has dropped at shoppers, has constructed a robust new phased-array receiver that may allow what Hubble CEO Alex Haro calls a “true Bluetooth layer across the Earth.” 

This superior payload will fly on two huge new satellites from four-year-old Muon Space, known as MuSat XL, that are slated to launch in 2027. The primary two MuSat XL spacecraft will ship a 12-hour world revisit time and detect Bluetooth Low Power (BLE) alerts at 30 occasions decrease energy than present capabilities, Hubble says. If these numbers pan out, it may materially lengthen battery life for monitoring tags and sensors right here on Earth. 

These two satellites will kind the spine of Hubble’s BLE Discovering Community for enterprises in sectors starting from logistics, infrastructure, and protection.

Hubble made history in 2024 when it turned the primary firm to determine a Bluetooth connection on to a satellite tv for pc. The startup’s proposition is compelling: as a substitute of needing to purchase specialised {hardware}, clients will solely have to combine their gadgets’ chipsets with a chunk of firmware to allow connection to the Hubble community. 

The advantages of the space-based community are huge, Hubble argues: it will possibly present visibility throughout the globe, together with in distant areas, and gives a developer-friendly approach to let corporations monitor property with out constructing any extra infrastructure. 

The corporate at present has seven spacecraft on orbit with a goal of getting 60 satellites in operation by 2028. The long-term aim is to improve your complete constellation to the bigger platform buses due to their energy and efficiency upgrades, Haro stated. 

It’s an aggressive schedule, however Haro added that one cause Hubble selected to accomplice with Muon is the latter’s skill to quickly scale manufacturing to hit this aim, regardless of being a younger firm. (A latest $146 million funding round ought to assist.) Gregory Smirin, president of Muon Area, informed TechCrunch that the corporate’s San Jose manufacturing facility is being constructed out to help manufacturing of over 500 spacecraft per yr by 2027. 

Hubble is the primary buyer for the five hundred kilogram-class MuSat XL satellite tv for pc platform, which Muon says can present multi-kilowatt energy to payloads, optical crosslinks, high-volume downlink, and “close to real-time” communications for time-sensitive missions. The partnership additionally alerts an even bigger push by the corporate to compete for extra profitable contracts with the Division of Protection. 

The XL platform “is an ideal measurement and functionality for SDA Tranche missions,” Smirin stated, referring to the Area Improvement Company’s initiative to construct out a missile protection constellation in low Earth orbit. “XL displays each the evolution of our technical stack and our rising position in delivering the sort of multi-mission spacecraft that packages like SDA more and more depend on.”

Muon’s enterprise mannequin could be regarded as space-as-a-service: the corporate designs, builds, and operates satellites utilizing a vertically-integrated stack of {hardware} and software program. The stack, known as Halo, is supposed to open up house entry for corporations with promising payloads however little interest in constructing the underlying satellite tv for pc structure. In follow, meaning Hubble can concentrate on growing the BLE community whereas Muon handles the satellite tv for pc platforms and mission operations.