T here’s at least one space race already underway to get to the moon. There’s also another one: to claim radio frequencies and orbital slots in the limited space around the earth. The main participants of this race are companies launching large fleets of satellites working together, called megaconstellations. These megaconstellations are already revolutionising Internet access around the world — but they’re also sparking a fierce and fraught competition for the invisible highways across which they send and receive information.

In physics, ‘spectrum’ refers to energy levels. Satellite communications uses the word with a similar meaning: the spectrum is the range of radio frequencies available for wireless data transmission. Radio frequencies are to outer space activities as oxygen is to l

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