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From: pontius@btv.vnet.ibm.com (Dale Pontius)
Subject: Re: Will Boeing Use Ada To Build $9 Bln Network For Teledesic?
Date: 1997/05/01
Message-ID: <5kabch$1a70$1@mdnews.btv.ibm.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 238668784
References: <3368134a.21286600@news.mindspring.com>
Organization: IBM Microelectronics Division
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-05-01T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <3368134a.21286600@news.mindspring.com>,
        munck@mindspring.com (Robert Munck) writes:
> (from Reuters)
>>SEATTLE - Teledesic, the communications startup mostly owned by
>>Seattle billionaires Bill Gates and Craig McCaw, has picked Boeing
>>to build and deploy its planned $9 billion satellite network.
>
>>Boeing also will invest up to $100 million in Teledesic, giving it a
>>10 percent stake in the privately-held company, which plans to launch
>>288 low-orbiting satellites by 2002 to form an "Internet in the sky."
>
> The satellites will be about 1000 Kg (2400 lb) each, orbiting at about
> 720 Km (450 mi).  It appears that data uplinked to one satellite will
> be routed through several others before being downlinked with no
> low-level control from ground stations!  This means a whole lot of
> software on each (perhaps 20% of the total weight) with tremendous
> reliability, security, and throughput requirements.
>
> Could it be written in anything but Ada?  Who will decide?  If it's
> Boeing, what would they choose?
>
Consider the customer... How about Visual Basic or Visual C++?
How about a variation of ActiveX called OrbitX?

Obviously the presence of 288 satellites in a relatively low orbit
won't constitute much of a "fence" between LEO and high orbits. But
if several more outfits decide to do the same thing on the same
scale, does it begin getting difficult to find a decent launch
window to get above LEO? Fortunately 450 mi is about the top range
for the Shuttle, or I'm sure this would give them some difficulties.

Dale Pontius
(NOT speaking for IBM)