Stacking the Sky: Why VLEO, MEO, GEO and HAPS Must Work Together

Introduction: From Orbit Wars to Orbit Stacks

The industry has spent the last decade debating whether LEO would kill GEO, whether HAPS are viable, and whether we need satellites at all in a fibre-first world. The truth in 2025 is more nuanced: no single orbit can solve every coverage, capacity, and cost problem.

Instead, the future of connectivity will be multi-layered — stacking stratospheric platforms, VLEO, MEO and GEO to deliver a network that is:

• Resilient: no single point of failure.

• Cost-optimised: high-capacity where needed, low-cost coverage where possible.

• Latency-aware: pushing time-sensitive workloads to the edge.

• Regulatory-compliant: distributing risk across spectrum regimes and ITU filings.

Boards must think about the sky as a portfolio, not a monolithic bet. This blog explains how the layers fit together and provides hard data on altitudes, link budgets, coverage footprints, and deployment times.

1. The Four Layers at a Glance

Layer	Typical Altitude	Coverage Footprint	Latency (1-way)	FSPL @ 2 GHz	Lifetime / Refresh	Example Players
HAPS	18–22 km	100–200 km diameter	~1–2 ms	~118 dB	7–30 day sorties	SoftBank HAPSMobile, Airbus Zephyr
VLEO	300–350 km	~500 km diameter	20–30 ms	~148 dB	2–5 years	Starlink Gen3 (planned), ESA Skimsat
MEO	8,000 km	~3,000 km diameter	120–150 ms	~170 dB	7–10 years	SES O3b mPOWER
GEO	35,786 km	Hemisphere	240+ ms	~195 dB	12–15 years	Viasat, Intelsat

Takeaway: Each layer offers a different performance–cost trade-off. Latency and FSPL improve dramatically as you move lower, but so do refresh rates and constellation size requirements.

2. Why We Need All Four Layers

HAPS — The Rapid Response Layer

HAPS can be airborne in days, making them ideal for:

• Disaster response (floods, earthquakes).

• Temporary event coverage (festivals, pilgrimages).

• Sovereign-controlled “on demand” capacity for governments.

They can be parked over a region, beamforming LTE/5G or NTN service with near-zero latency. But they are operationally intense — sorties must be planned, aircraft maintained, and regulatory permissions obtained.

VLEO — The Low-Latency Workhorse

VLEO offers:

• Excellent link budgets (3–4 dB better than mid-LEO at 550 km).

• Low latency (<30 ms) suitable for gaming, real-time control, and edge services.

• Natural debris mitigation: orbits are self-cleaning, reducing space risk.

Downside: satellites need constant drag compensation and are refreshed every few years — so boards must model constellation OPEX like a subscription.

MEO — The High-Throughput Trunk

MEO is a sweet spot for:

• High-capacity enterprise backhaul.

• Connectivity for maritime and aero markets.

• Consistent global coverage with fewer satellites than LEO.

SES O3b mPOWER has proven MEO’s viability for cloud connectivity. Latency (~130 ms) is fine for video streaming, less so for real-time gaming.

GEO — The Broadcast Bedrock

GEO remains king for:

• Software updates, TV distribution, wide-area IoT.

• Lowest cost per coverage area.

• Very long design life (12–15 years), low constellation churn.

But GEO can’t solve the latency problem — so it must be paired with lower layers for interactive services.

3. Comparative Performance Metrics

Latency & Coverage

Layer	Round-Trip Latency	Satellites / Platforms Needed for Global Coverage
HAPS	<5 ms	Not global — local/regional only
VLEO	40–60 ms	10,000–15,000+ (dense shells)
MEO	250–300 ms	10–20 (medium inclination planes)
GEO	500–600 ms	3 (equatorial)

Deployment Speed & Flexibility

Layer	Time-to-Deploy	Scalability	Notes
HAPS	Days to weeks	Highly scalable regionally	Airspace clearance is gating factor
VLEO	Months to years	Scales in shells/planes	Requires high launch cadence
MEO	Years	Constellation-level	Long satellite build cycles
GEO	Years	One-by-one launches	Longest lead times, lowest flexibility

Link Budget Implications

Layer	FSPL (2 GHz)	EIRP Required for Handset Link	Ground Terminal Size
HAPS	~118 dB	<20 dBm	Phone’s internal antenna
VLEO	~148 dB	~28–30 dBW per satellite	Small ESA payload
MEO	~170 dB	40+ dBW	Larger sat antennas
GEO	~195 dB	50+ dBW	Consumer broadband needs dish

4. Hybrid Deployment Example: Disaster Recovery

Imagine a major hurricane knocks out fibre and cell towers:

1. Day 1: HAPS launched and positioned, providing 5G coverage for emergency responders.

2. Day 2: VLEO satellites backhaul voice and data for hospitals and government command posts.

3. Day 3+: GEO broadcasts mass evacuation info to the entire affected region.

4. Weeks later: MEO provides trunk capacity for temporary networks until fibre is restored.

This layered playbook reduces recovery time from weeks to days.

5. The Orchestration Challenge

To make the stack work, you need:

• Seamless handover protocols (3GPP Rel-17/18 NTN handover, beam switching).

• Spectrum coordination: MSS vs FSS, Ka vs S-band coexistence, avoiding interference.

• AI-driven routing: Steering traffic by cost, latency, and SLA target automatically.

Procurement teams must ensure vendors support multi-orbit orchestration rather than siloed networks.

6. Business & Regulatory Implications

Boards should think about:

• Capex diversification: Invest across layers to avoid a single-orbit dependency.

• Spectrum strategy: Secure MSS and NTN bands early — they are appreciating assets.

• Resilience KPIs: Define metrics for uptime, disaster coverage, and latency SLAs.

• ESG profile: VLEO’s self-cleaning orbits and HAPS’s solar power reduce space debris and carbon footprint.

7. Board-Level “So-What”

Decision Area	Recommended Board Action
Coverage Strategy	Approve a multi-layer architecture strategy, not a single-orbit bet
Procurement	Mandate vendor neutrality and support for multi-orbit orchestration
Risk Management	Build regulatory heatmaps for MSS/FSS, HAPS flight corridors
Investment Planning	Budget for ongoing VLEO replenishment and HAPS sortie ops
Resilience Planning	Include HAPS + VLEO in business continuity planning

Conclusion: The Sky Is Not Flat — and Neither Should Your Strategy Be

The future is not GEO or LEO. It is GEO and VLEO and MEO and HAPS — a stacked sky delivering resilience, low latency, and cost efficiency.

Boards that treat orbital layers as a portfolio can:

• Achieve superior customer experience,

• Spread regulatory and capex risk,

• And unlock new revenue streams (disaster recovery SLAs, roaming-as-a-service).

This is not an engineering hobby — it’s a strategic design choice for the next decade of digital infrastructure.