LoRaWAN In Space - Jon Pearce & Lacuna Space

The episode explores how Lacuna Space uses LoRaWAN over low‑Earth‑orbit satellites to solve the traditional coverage limitations of terrestrial LoRaWAN networks. Jon Pearce explains that Lacuna targets low-power, low-bandwidth IoT use cases where devices send small, infrequent data packets directly from sensor to satellite, trading bandwidth for battery life and global reach.

Jon describes the company’s developer kit and antenna approach, along with typical data profiles such as water metering and environmental monitoring that can tolerate a few uplinks per day.

Pearce also outlines how Lacuna scales its constellation based on capacity and specific customer requirements, including sovereign or national deployments, and how it partners with other satellite operators to embed Lacuna technology on their spacecraft.

Throughout, he contrasts Lacuna’s model with legacy high-bandwidth satellite services and emphasizes the economics of expanding constellations for large, well-defined IoT rollouts like nationwide smart metering.

Jon Pearce on LinkedIn

Lacuna Space

• Helium Global IoT Coverage - Want to know if Helium coverage exists where you need it? Check out this map!
• Helium Foundation - The Helium Foundation's IoT Working Group (IOTWG) has generously provided support for the first 6 months of shows, please go check them out and consider using the Helium LoRaWAN as a primary or backup on your next deployment. With over a quarter million gateways deployed worldwide, it's likely that you have and can use Helium coverage.
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• MetSci Show - If you'd like to use our IoT or AI Data Value calculators, or you'd like to contact me, the MetSci Show site is the best way to do it.
• MeteoScientific Console - Use LoRaWAN - The MeteoScientific Console allows you to use LoRaWAN today. As long as you have Helium coverage (and you probably do, about 90% of populated areas in the world have a gateway within 2 miles), you can onboard a sensor. You can always check coverage at https://explorer.helium.com and switch to the "IoT" tab in the top right.