Credit: Kepler Communications

Kepler Communications Inc. is a private telecommunications company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company's stated mission is to deliver affordable network connectivity across the globe via a growing network of small CubeSat satellites. The company was founded in 2015 by four graduate students from the University of Toronto, who previously worked together on various design projects through the University of Toronto Aerospace Team. Put simply, Kepler Communications is building cell phone towers in space. This infrastructure will resolve the problem of intermittent connectivity for non-geostationary satellites, will open new business opportunities that necessitate real-time connectivity to satellites, and will reduce reliance on costly and difficult to deploy ground infrastructure. Kepler's key technology is a high-capacity, high-throughput software-defined radio (SDR) that can provide 200 MHz of bandwidth, allowing for data throughput of 500 megabits/second (Mbps) in communication speed.

Satellite info

Nation: Canada
Company/operator: Kepler Communications
Platform/configuration: 6U CubeSat
Mass: 6 kg
Orbit: 400 km - 650 km Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
Instruments:
  • Software-defined radio (SDR)
  • Narrowband communications
Purpose: Internet of Things (IoT), Machine-to-machine (M2M)
Launch vehicles: Soyuz-2-1b Fregat, Falcon 9
Website: https://kepler.space

Kepler

Video

Kepler satellites launch overview

Flight no. Date launch Rocket Launch base Orbit Satellites launched Mission succes?
1 19/01/2018 CZ-11 Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (China) 540 km 1 (KIPP)

Success

2 29/11/2018 PSLV-CA Satish Dhawan Space Centre (India) 540 km 1 (CASE)

Success

3 03/09/2020 Vega Guiana Space Centre (France) 530 km 1 (TARS)

Success

4 28/09/2020 Soyuz-2-1b Fregat Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Russia) 560 km 2

Success

5 24/01/2021

Cape Canaveral (USA) 525 km 8

Success

6 22/03/2021 Soyuz-2-1b Fregat Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Russia) 550 km 2

Success

7 13/01/2022

Cape Canaveral (USA) 525 km 4

Success

8 15/04/2023

Cape Canaveral (USA) 525 km 2

Success

Images: Kepler Communications

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Kris Christiaens

This article was published by FutureSpaceFlight founder and chief editor Kris Christiaens. Kris Christiaens has been passionate and fascinated by spaceflight and space exploration all his life and has written hundreds of articles on space projects, the commercial space industry and space missions over the past 20 years for magazines, books and websites. In late 2021, he founded the website FutureSpaceFlight with the goal of promoting new space companies and commercial space projects and compiling news of these start-ups and companies on one website.