The NBN’s second satellite, Sky Muster II, is launching in a rocket that will have a unique feature — artwork with the faces of 1,210 Australians.
Scheduled to launch from French Guiana Space Centre in South America in late 2016, the satellite will “help deliver fast broadband to even the most remotely located Australians, helping to bridge the digital divide between city and bush,” NBN said in a statement.
There are currently more than 37,000 users on NBN’s interim satellite service across Australia, with NBN’s goal to move them (along with new users) to the new satellite within one year of the commercial launch in May 2017.
NBN says its satellite service is designed to deliver wholesale broadband speeds of up to 25 Mbps download and up to 5 Mbps upload to retail service providers, dependent on the technology over which services are delivered to your premises and some factors outside NBN’s control like your equipment quality, software, broadband plans and how your service provider designs its network.
“Since launching the first NBN satellite in October 2015, we’ve provided access to fast broadband for around 400,000 homes and businesses located in regional, remote, outback and offshore Australia which are now able to order an NBN Sky Muster satellite service,” Julia Dickinson, NBN’s Satellite Architect said.
“The launch of our second satellite is another major step in helping us to deliver world-class broadband to those who need it the most.”
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“Last year seven-year-old Bailey Brooks from a cattle station outside of Alice Springs won the opportunity to name the first NBN satellite and have her drawing printed on the nose cone of the rocket which launched it into space,” NBN said. ”
This year, we are going one step further with the unique opportunity for people to submit photos which will be collated into a national portrait of our country. We are making history and we want to invite all Australians to be a part of it.”
So here’s the deal with the get your face on a rocket thing: if you’re Australian, you can submit a photo of yourself and win “the chance to etch your place in history”. The photos will be stitched together to form a mosaic artwork, which will be printed on the nose cone of the rocket that will launch the satellite into space.
If you want your face on the NBN’s rocket you can submit an entry here.