On November 9, 2020, Lacuna Space announced the successful launch and communications with its fourth LoRaWAN IoT gateway. The satellite was put into an equatorial low Earth orbit (LEO), covering a band around the globe between the North and South 40th parallels.
“We are continuing to push the boundaries of what’s technically possible with extremely low power IoT technology with each generation of IoT gateways we are putting into space,” said Rob Spurrett, CEO of Lacuna Space. “This latest one offers higher sensitivity and capacity for message reception from LoRaWAN devices. It also allows us to better cover regions around the equator offering more opportunities for our technology partners and IoT services providers across South America, Africa and Southeast Asia.”
Lacuna’s 6U-sized satellite shared with SpaceWorks Orbital’s IoT payload was part of a Indian ISRO PSLV launch that took place on November 7, 2020. Construction of the satellite and early operations have been handled by NanoAvionics, with gateway expected to enter full service by the end of the year.
The skies are becoming full of IoT satellites, with Swarm Technologies launching a batch of satellites a few months ago as worldwide launch operations resumed in the third quarter of 2020. Astrocast and Swarm are expected to launch more of their respective satellites by the end of the year onboard various rideshare missions.
