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When the Kremlin’s commanders began blasting Ukrainian cities and cultural centers, cathedrals and children with exploding missiles, the Western satellite colossus Intelsat teamed up with Help.NGO to rush life-saving internet terminals into the besieged democracy (Photo by NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA \/ AFP) (Photo by NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
When Moscow started blitzing Ukraine\u2019s cities and communications towers with exploding missiles, the Western satellite colossus Intelsat swiftly mapped out strategies to keep the country from being bombed into an informational black hole.<\/p>\n
As the first Russian rockets blasted their targets, and Kremlin commandos launched a cyber-ambush<\/a> on the American satellite operator Viasat, Intelsat joined forces with Help.NGO to rush lifesaving sat terminals into embattled Ukraine.<\/p>\n Help.NGO, equipped with Intelsat ground stations, raced to set up wireless hotspots in makeshift havens across the bombed-out democracy, says Brendan Harvey, the group\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n His detachment of internet- and satellite-tech wizards linked up displaced Ukrainians with Intelsat\u2019s broadband beaming spacecraft \u201cin town squares already subject to missile attacks,\u201d Harvey tells me in an interview.<\/p>\n Dave Wasjgras, Intelsat\u2019s techno-utopian CEO<\/a>, tells me in a separate, sweeping interview that joining forces with Help.NGO\u2019s rapid response teams to provide satellite-enabled internet kiosks in wartime Ukraine represented a high-priority humanitarian mission for the titanic satellite operator.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe it\u2019s important to support these types of missions around the world,\u201d Wasjgras says.<\/p>\n Intelsat\u2019s leadership rapidly green-lighted the campaign to set up internet citadels.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in Ukraine need support,\u201d says Wasjgras, a prominent tech philanthropist. \u201cThey need our help.\u201d<\/p>\n Intelsat satellites in geosynchronous orbit beam broadband connections to besieged Ukrainians 35,000 kilometers away<\/p>\n Image courtesy of Thales Alenia Space and Intelsat<\/p>\n Intelsat\u2019s goal in its alliance with Help.NGO was to throw internet lifelines to Ukrainians\u2014including refugees fleeing the rocket barrages\u2014as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n Help.NGO\u2019s executive director says his tech squads sprinted to set up internet sanctuaries\u2014sometimes within hours\u2014\u201cin communities hit by rocket fire outside Kyiv,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n Speed is of the essence, he says, when assembling ad hoc internet oases that doctors, firefighters and humanitarian aid providers can all rely on in the struggle to minimize casualties in ground zero sites hit in missile strikes.<\/p>\n Harvey says Help.NGO has forged a longtime humanitarian partnership with Intelsat. Over the last decade, they have jointly mounted tech-powered recovery missions across hurricane- and earthquake-wreaked regions along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n Moscow’s escalating missile attacks on Ukraine’s campuses and religious centers have forced many schools to move their classes into underground metro stations, with internet links provided via satellites orbiting 35,000 kilometers above the Earth (Photo by Wolfgang Schwan\/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Anadolu Agency via Getty Images<\/p>\n Together, he says, the allies rush leading-edge mobile technologies\u2014like advanced, compact terminals that can fit into a backpack and connect with Intelsat\u2019s orbiting satellites\u2014that can provide high-speed internet connectivity to other critical first responders speeding to rescue victims across disaster sites or conflict zones.<\/p>\n Quantum leaps in miniaturizing satellite transceivers, and in simplifying their operation, are in turn cutting down the time Help.NGO technicians need to create each hotspot outpost, he says.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s terminals are just one-tenth the size of their predecessors of a decade ago, Harvey says, and adds: \u201cNow a ten-year-old could set up the terminal after watching a three-minute YouTube video.\u201d<\/p>\n Intelsat has long been a pole star in the space sector, and a leading light in humanitarian missions across the face of the globe. Its Early Bird satellite transmitted coverage of the first NASA astronauts landing on the Moon, and it remains a Titan in the realm of geosynchronous orbit (Photo by NASA\/Space Frontiers\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe could set up an entire network of terminals very quickly,\u201d he says, at speeds that reduce risks to Help.NGO teams and other humanitarian staff in regions where the missiles are still flying.<\/p>\n Adam Marlatt, Help.NGO\u2019s operations director, says in a chronicle of the group\u2019s quest to bring Intelsat\u2019s broadband connectivity into Ukraine that every second counted<\/a> as the Russian invasion unfolded.<\/p>\n When Kremlin troops and tanks began crashing across Ukraine\u2019s borders in 2022, Marlatt says, Help.NGO was the only \u201cUN Standby Partner\u201d with an outpost in the region, in nearby Gdansk, Poland, and raced to \u201cset up a hub for NGOs, UN agencies, and the private sector to collaborate, coordinate, and deploy assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe invasion caused Europe\u2019s largest refugee crisis since World War II,\u201d he says, \u201cwith over 10 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced.”<\/p>\n \u201cHundreds of humanitarian organizations from all over the world, including UN agencies, began providing aid to the victims of the conflict,\u201d Marlatt says.<\/p>\n Pope Francis hugs a young refugee from Ukraine in The Vatican. Russia’s missile attacks and invasion of Ukraine triggered an exodus of 10 million refugees – many of them children – fleeing the Kremlin’s bombs and tanks (Photo by Tiziana FABI \/ AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n Help.NGO aided refugees joining an exodus from the war-torn nation, while simultaneously providing vital internet communications for humanitarian leaders representing more than four dozen organizations, he adds.<\/p>\n \u201cThis includes providing connectivity to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (Doctors without Borders) working to provide lifesaving assistance to field hospitals in Ukraine.”<\/p>\n Help.NGO and Intelsat provided critical internet connections to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (Doctors without Borders) as they raced to give lifesaving assistance to field hospitals in Ukraine. (Photo by Stefano Guidi\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Help.NGO also expedited the passage of UN leaders into Ukraine with hyper-tech Convoys-on-the-Move\u2014next-generation caravans of cars outfitted with satellite terminals, and a mesh Wi-Fi network linking all the vehicles\u2014to guarantee constant, life-shielding communications during the hazardous treks to the Ukrainian capital.<\/p>\n Marlatt says his group designed these futuristic internet-saturated motorcades to speed and shield UN Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres across twin trips into Ukraine, along with \u201cthe visit by an International Atomic Energy Agency inspection team to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n