COURTESY ONEWEB
A rocket carrying
the first six OneWeb
satellites lifts off from
the Guiana Space
Centre, near Kourou,
on Feb. 27which carry a hearty helping of yellow fever, offer
more adventure than most outsiders seek.
Built in the 1960s, the Guiana Space Centre pres-
ents a study in contradictions with its surround-
ings. Its home city of Kourou is about an hour’s
drive north of the capital, Cayenne, and was once
home to the notoriously brutal Devil’s Island penal
colony. To reach the spaceport, you travel on two-
lane highways past densely packed rainforest and
modest, brightly colored houses with tin roofs.
Billboards along the highways alternate between
plugs for potato chips and satellites. The facility
takes up 266 square miles, employs thousands of
people, and serves as the launch site for rockets
from Europe. Arianespace, a European aerospace
company, operates three launchpads: two for its
own rockets, and one for a version of the Russian
Soyuz, which carried the OneWeb satellites.
From a physics standpoint, Kourou has a lot
going for it. It’s on the coast just 300 miles north
of the equator, which means the rockets receive
an added boost—the Earth spins fastest at its mid-
point—and that most debris from a mishap isfrom a company he’s invested in called Wafer. “I
haven’t found any other technology that is close,”
he says. “It’s at least one to three years ahead
of everything else.” OneWeb also secured valu-
able wireless spectrum rights for its service well
ahead of its rivals. If the satellites from the recent
launch work as billed, the company will hold
on to those broadcast frequencies for decades.
Competitors will have to find spectrum of their own
and persuade the United Nations’ International
Telecommunication Union that they won’t inter-
fere with OneWeb’s service.
French Guiana provides an all-too-symbolic
backdrop for Wyler and Branson’s quest to bring the
trappings of modernity to poor and remote locales.
The economy of the French territory, located
in northeastern South America, is stuck in neu-
tral, with limited farming and a heavy reliance on
imports and subsidies from its colonizer. Many peo-
ple are as likely to get around by canoe as they are
on the dilapidated roads. Even the beaches struggle
to lure tourists because of their biting sand fleas and
murky, mud-colored waters. And the rainforests,