Sahara Solar Relay Company

The Sahara Solar Relay Company, founded in 2125, operates one of the largest interplanetary communications networks, with 260 relay satellites between Earth, L5, Mars and Jupiter. Its relays carry everything from personal messages to telemetry from deep-space ships.

Six Polaris Relay Tenders keep the network running. Each Polaris has twin robotic arms that refuel, repair and upgrade satellites in place, and a xenon ion drive using only 1.4 tonnes per 100 AU with a 55 AU range. With two pilots and seven crew, a Polaris can service a dozen satellites in one trip. Each cost 118 million credits.

Two Kestrel shuttles carry technicians to and from the L5 hub, and a single Valkyrie Survey Corvette checks proposed relay positions for debris and radiation. Relay maintenance is not glamorous work, but it is essential. Without Sahara Solar's satellites, ships beyond Mars would lose real-time contact with home for weeks during solar conjunctions.

The company's network operations centre in Nairobi monitors every satellite around the clock, and Polaris crews are dispatched whenever a relay starts showing signs of degradation, usually before customers notice anything at all. Sahara Solar plans to extend its network to Saturn by 2190, and has ordered two more Polaris tenders for delivery next year.

In 2185 Sahara Solar replaced the entire Mars–Jupiter relay chain without a single hour of downtime. Lars Eriksen of Halcyon's open data programme works with Sahara Solar on the public telemetry feeds.