WASHINGTON — Since SpaceX disrupted the satellite communications market with low-latency broadband from low Earth orbit, traditional satellite operators have promoted “multi-orbit” architectures that combine low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and geostationary satellites into integrated communications systems designed to survive outages, attacks and congestion. The Pentagon has largely embraced the concept as it looks for ways to reduce dependence on any single commercial provider.
Now a San Francisco startup is arguing the industry may have overcomplicated the problem.
Contrivian, a telecommunications software company founded in 2023, is arguing that stitching together satellites operating at vastly different altitudes introduces technical complications that degrade performance for modern internet applications. Instead, the company says future military communications networks should rely primarily on multiple LEO constellations operating together.
The company recently launched a platform called Contrivian Constellation that dynamically routes traffic among different LEO providers, including Starlink and Amazon, under a single managed service. The system is now being tested with U.S. Special Operations Forces, whose missions often depend on maintaining communications in contested environments.
