Europe's alternative to Starlink

As most of you probably know, dear readers....

Elon Musk is the man behind Starlink. Starlink is a constellation of satellites of a sort critical to internet operation -- to the global and near-instantaneous character of it that we have come to take for granted. That constellation is the property of Starlink Services LLC. The parent company is SpaceX. The founder and CEO of SpaceX is ... Elon Musk.

Also, as you probably know, Musk has become a big figure in US politics of late.

We will skip further explanation and simply say that the European powers want an alternative provider of satellite internet services.

Starlink, meet your new commercial and geopolitical competitor ... Eutelsat Communications. the company is based in Paris, France. Its chief executive is Eva Berneke, a Danish engineer. It is Germany that is at present making a fair amount of noise about using Eutelsat as a way of freeing Europe (and Europe's eastern frontier, Ukraine) from continued reliance on Musk and his minions.

All of which is just to say: I wish Ms Berneke the best of luck.

In the attached image you are witnessing a Eutelsat satellite being installed into an Ariane rocket.

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