Helios Wire

Helios Wire was a developer of satellite-based IoT systems designed to assist in wireless satellite communications. The company's system connected to a machine-to-machine platform that tracked and improved wireless connectivity at low bandwidth and low service cost.

Helios Wire LEO satellite.

Helios Wire used priority mobile satellite system S-band spectrum to build a two-way global satellite-enabled system for ultra-low-cost short burst data services covering connected assets. This allowed for the monitoring and controlling of both fixed and mobile assets in the transportation, consumer, logistics, security, public safety, energy, industrial, construction, agriculture, and animal management industries. Helios Wire used a blend of low-Earth orbiting satellites and terrestrial networks for the company's combined dataset.

Helios Wire's planned constellation of M2M communication satellites was intended to have a flexible size for scaling operations, with the first satellite being used to begin operations. The first single satellite would be capable of acquiring information once every twelve hours, with two satellites being capable of every 6 hours, and every four to five hours with three satellites. These satellites were developed by Astro Digital, and based on a 16U CubeSat form factor. They featured an S-band two-way communication payloads. The first satellite was launched in October 2018 on a Flavon-9 v1.2 rocket. A second satellite was planned to be launched into orbit on a Soyuz rocket in December 2018 and a third on a February 2019 Soyuz flight.

In October 2019, EchoStar acquired Helios Wire. This came after Helios Wire launched the company's second satellite, Pathfinder II, on a SmallSat Express mission by SpaceX, after the company's first satellite, Pathfinder I, was lost when a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying several satellites failed to make orbit in November 2017. EchoStar's interest in acquiring Helios Wire was in part due to the company's holding global spectrum rights for S-band mobile satellite service, acquired by Helios Wire from Sirion Global, which Echostar felt advanced its own strategy to develop S-band technologies. The S-band technologies are expected to reduce the cost of satellite-based IoT and machine-to-machine communications, among other applications.