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Article Review - Satellites and Politics

Review of Lisa Price’s “Footprints of the Global South: RASCOM QAF/1R and Venesat-1 as Counter-Hegemonic Satellites.”1

In this article, Lisa Parks compares two communication satellites, the RASCOM QAF/1R and the Venesat-1, owned by the countries of Libya and Venezuela respectively, and charts their attempt to exert their influence as regional space powers and break what they viewed as the hegemonic power structures that control the satellite communication industry. She delves into the economic, cultural and political impacts that these programs had on the countries, their regions and the global communication industry, and brings in some fascinating topics bringing it all together.

Lisa Parks is a professor of Comparative Media Studies and Science, Technology and Society at MIT.2 She was named a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and writes primarily about the use of satellites and advanced technologies in communication. This paper was published in 2012 in the Handbook of Global Media Research – note that there have been massive shifts in the politics of both countries mentioned, as well as updates on the specific satellites, which play a significant role in understanding the impact of these programs. We have the benefit of hindsight to see how this turned out.

As background for the paper, Venezuela at the time was ruled by Hugo Chavez, a locally popular but controversial figure that was a committed socialist and anti-imperialist. He died in 2013, replaced by Nicholas Maduro, and Venezuela is currently in a long-term fiscal and socio-political crisis, with the economy shrinking by more than 60% from 2013 to 2019 and poverty levels at 92%, according to the UN.3 Libya has not fared much better – after an internal uprising and intervention from the global community, Muammar Gaddafi was graphically executed by rebels in 2011, and the country remains in persistent civil war and anarchy.

Both countries were led by outspoken rulers that intended to create their own satellite network to become, as described by Venezuela’s economic director at the time, ‘world leader[s] in space exploration and communication.’4 They had aspirations to use satellite ownership to prioritize social welfare, integration of indigenous communities and bring together the nation – although it also enabled censor and control of the narrative, as illustrated as the Libyan Government’s commandeering of the RASCOM satellite to call for martyrdom and revenge while in the middle of the uprising.5 A core reason for developing a national satellite program is to break the reliance on foreign companies that build and control the them, based primarily in the US and Europe. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, African countries pooled together $500M per year to pay for satellite coverage from European and US providers. By 2009, the Regional African Satellite Communication Organization (RASCOM) calculated that they could develop their own satellite for a one-time cost of $400M and operate it at a fraction of what they were previously paying per-annum.6

African Coverage of RASCOM

The Venesat-1 was designed, launched and initially controlled by the Chinese, with operational transfers to the Venezuelans once they established two sites in-country. The focus of this satellite program was to establish a national network of Venezuelan programming focused on the Socialist revolution, with some limited (and failed) attempts to broadcast Venezuelan-produced television throughout the region. As of 2013, Venezuelan programming was mostly delivered by other satellites, with rumors that the satellite was never fully operational. Parks notes that a satellite dedicated to address socio-economic imbalances may not need as much capacity as a commercial satellite that must maximize bandwidth to remain fiscally viable, but the weak impact of the Venesat-1 remains. As of 2013, the Venezuelan government claimed that they linked 16,000 satellite dishes to the network – with a launch cost of $240M, this works out to somewhere around $15k per connection.

The RASCOM QAF/1R satellite was built in France and launched from Papua New Guinea while the African company that would manage the satellite (RASCOM) was established in Mauritius. The initial satellite was destroyed in launch, but the second successfully deployed and went operational. One thing to consider about this satellite is that while Gaddafi made a $300M donation to build and deploy the satellite, other countries were involved in both the financing and operation of the satellite. Parks makes the case that the satellite was a ‘counter hegemonic’ tool, but while Libya did have an outsized influence in the project the African system intended to service most of Africa and break the reliance on foreign companies rather than address one specific historical injustice.

Parks misses the mark on the role of hegemony for both programs – developed near the same time, she correctly classifies the Venezuelan satellite as a counter-hegemonic tool determined to break the reliance on the US and expand their own regional influence. However, while the African system also wanted to break their reliance on foreign communication firms, the intent was to work together to build a commercially viable system that the African countries could use to build their independence. Gaddafi’s incendiary comments about the satellite breaking the backbone of imperialism were not essential to the overall mission. Since this paper was written, three major events have occurred. First, both Venezuela and Libya are in existential crises and near collapse, in no position to exert regional influence, much less become leaders in space technology. Secondly, the Venesat-1 malfunctioned and is no longer in a viable orbit as of March 2020, four years before their next satellite was due to be constructed and launched (and in their current fiscal state, very unlikely this will happen)7. Because they positioned themselves to be a satellite communications leader (as opposed to being a partnership with the region), they cancelled most of their other contracts with satellite-operating countries in the global south, such as Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico. This ironically leaves the country without easily accessible satellite communication – a worse state than Venezuela was in before the satellite.

Thirdly, RASCOM has shifted gears and entered into long-term agreements with the foreign companies that they previously wanted to break from, gaining significant cost reductions and autonomy over a suite of European-built satellites. By demonstrating that they could launch their own satellite, foreign companies realized that if they did not change their business model, they would miss out on servicing the entire African market. The African market is growing quickly, and while still in flux, generated $7B in revenue last year (still unprofitable, but that is common in technology industries).8

My overall take on this paper, with the gift of hindsight, is that Africa’s pivot to building a dynamic and robust space infrastructure through collaboration was a more effective method than Venezuela’s nationalistic endeavors. Spending $240M to launch a satellite that does not service many other parts of South America, while only connecting a marginal number of previously unconnected communities led to a financially unsustainable dead-end, with no follow-on once the satellite malfunctioned. By contrast, Africa quickly pivoted away from Gaddafi’s rhetoric and used their initial success to build a (hopefully) profitable communication infrastructure has been far more effective at connecting people all throughout the continent. Like the Venesat-1, their satellite is now out of service, but over the past decade RASCOM has made deals to control hundreds of other ones, hence revolutionizing the communication industry in Africa and creating a long-term viable plan.

Footnotes​

  1. Parks, L. (2012). "Footprints of the Global South." The Handbook of Global Media Research: 123-142. ↩

  2. Lisa Parks Profile, <https://lisaparks.mit.edu\> ↩

  3. ‘Venezuela Situation’. The UN Refugee Agency. <https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/venezuela-emergency.html\> ↩

  4. Parks, 133. ↩

  5. Parks, 136. ↩

  6. Parks, 137. ↩

  7. ’Solar Array Problem Killed Venezuela’s VeneSat-1’. <https://spacenews.com/solar-array-problem-killed-venezuelas-venesat-1-officials-confirm/\> ↩

  8. ‘African Space Market’. <http://www.satellitemarkets.com/market-trends/annual-2020-african-space-industry-report-released\> ↩