Xona's six-satellite Pulsar launch opens a beta that tests timing before positioning

Six satellites are about 2.3% of the 258 Xona plans ^[24]. Once in orbit, they will pass over mid-latitudes about eight times a day ^[7]. That averages one pass every three hours ^[25]. A clock check fits inside a single pass. Positioning through a working day needs a satellite in view far more often. Tech AI Wire, summarizing the reports, expects early service to be patchy and says timing uses are where testing starts ^[21].

Xona says existing GPS receivers can pick up Pulsar with a relatively simple software change ^[3]. The signals sit in the L-band, next to the frequencies GPS uses ^[12]. I'd expect that frequency choice is what makes a software-only upgrade plausible, because hardware built for GPS already listens near those frequencies.

The performance figures come from Xona. The company says Pulsar is accurate to centimeters, against meters for GPS, and strong enough to work indoors ^[2]. The 100-times-stronger signal is also Xona's number ^[19]. Chief executive Brian Manning says that strength is enough to deter spoofing and jamming ^[11]. For those numbers to carry over to a given product, beta results have to show them on that product's receiver, with the coverage the constellation has when the test runs. Payload puts initial operations in early 2027 ^[8].

Four of the six satellites resemble last year's prototype and use a satellite platform from Aerospacelab. The other two were built entirely by Xona in Burlingame, California ^[4]. TechCrunch describes those two as the foundation of the full constellation ^[5]. I think flying the in-house design next to a design with flight history is the right way to take risk on a first batch. The next four, now being built in Burlingame, are about 10% lighter ^[15].

That leaves 252 of the planned satellites still to come after this batch ^[26]. In Montreal, Xona is expanding by 35,000 square feet for manufacturing and operations. Its goal is to be turning out several satellites a week by the end of 2027 ^[16]. Xona hired Patrick Cadariu as chief operating officer to run it; he worked in operations at Waymo for almost ten years ^[17]. "With a product like a navigation service, you can't scale at the expense of performance or operational resilience," Cadariu told Payload ^[18].

"People think of GPS as a free service, but the market isn't the service," Manning told TechCrunch. "There's an immense market that is desperately looking for better performance." ^[13] Pulsar is a commercial product, and none of the reports give a price yet ^[20].