The altitude band between LEO and GEO — roughly 2,000–35,786 km — most famous as the home of GPS and other GNSS constellations.
Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) spans the region between LEO and GEO. The defining inhabitants are global navigation systems — GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou — which fly in MEO at altitudes of ~19,000–23,000 km because the geometry gives global coverage with a modest number of satellites.
MEO is increasingly being explored for high-throughput satellite comms (notably O3b mPOWER) as a middle ground: lower latency than GEO with better link budgets than LEO.
Operates a cloud-native federated ground station network providing Ground Software as a Service for satellite telemetry, tracking, and command
Develops network orchestration software and laser communication terminals that unify satellite, airborne, maritime, and ground networks into a single managed system
Develops reusable heavy-lift launch vehicles, rocket engines, lunar landers, in-space logistics platforms, and satellite communications constellations.
Governs China's civil space programs, oversees lunar and planetary exploration missions, and coordinates international space cooperation
Designs and manufactures defence weapon systems, high energy laser weapons, counter-drone systems, and space domain awareness technologies
Operates a global optical telescope network and develops space domain awareness, missile defense, and national security space technologies
Designs and operates orbital transfer vehicles that move payloads between orbits using high-thrust chemical propulsion, delivering to GEO in under a day.
Designs and manufactures large-scale, high-power satellite platforms with in-house electric propulsion and avionics for multi-orbit missions.
Builds robotic spacecraft and modular payloads for in-space servicing, satellite upgrades, and space domain awareness
Provides satellite ground station services, maritime surveillance, and Earth observation data through a global network of polar and mid-latitude antennas
Operates 40+ owned ground stations across 19 locations, providing satellite TT&C and payload data downlink through automated cloud-based scheduling.
Contrivian argues that stitching together GEO, MEO and LEO satellites creates networking problems, and that LEO constellations alone can provide both resilience and speed The post Startup challenging satellite industry’s multi-orbit playbook appeared first on SpaceNews .
Experiments will attempt to establish crosslinks from medium Earth orbit satellites The post Space Force taps K2 satellites to test laser communications for missile-defense appeared first on SpaceNews.
The Next-Generation OPIR Polar satellite procurement faces ax as Pentagon cites alternatives in low and medium Earth orbit to replace coverage The post Northrop Grumman delivers sensor for missile-warning satellite as Pentagon cancels program appeared first on SpaceNews.