Glossary
Definitions
5 definitions
MEO (Medium Earth Orbit)
Orbital region between 2,000 and 35,786 km altitude, used primarily for GNSS navigation constellations (GPS at 20,200 km, Galileo at 23,222 km) and broadband satellites like SES O3b mPOWER at 8,063 km.
MILSATCOM (Military Satellite Communications)
Dedicated satellite communication systems operated by military forces for protected, jam-resistant communications — including the US WGS (Wideband Global SATCOM), UK Skynet, and France's Syracuse constellations — complemented by commercial SATCOM (COMSATCOM) leasing for capacity surge requirements.
Maritime Satellite Connectivity
Satellite communication services for ships at sea — encompassing vessel operational communications, crew welfare internet, safety GMDSS compliance, and IoT sensor data — provided via GEO VSAT (Ku/Ka-band) and increasingly via LEO systems (Starlink Maritime) across the global fleet of 60,000+ commercial vessels.
Mega-constellation
A satellite constellation comprising hundreds to thousands of satellites in LEO, designed to deliver global broadband internet coverage. Starlink (10,000+ satellites) and Eutelsat OneWeb (648 satellites) are the two operational examples as of 2026.
Multi-orbit Networking
An architecture that integrates LEO, MEO, and GEO satellite networks into a unified connectivity solution, routing traffic dynamically across orbit types based on latency, cost, availability, and application requirements — enabling seamless hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks.