Advanced Television

Inside Satellite

Chris Forrester

Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.

Falcon 9 vs Starship: Launch cadences

Each very well established and highly reliable Falcon 9 rocket can carry 23 Starlink satellites into their transfer orbits. The much larger – but as yet unproved – Starship rocket can carry about 50 satellites. Satellite watcher Ken Kirtland, an industrial designer at Formation Design Group, has compared and contrasted the cost vs effectiveness equation […]

February 15, 2024

SpaceX to bring down 100 satellites

Elon Musk says that SpaceX will deorbit approximately 100 of its early version Starlink satellites which have a design problem and could fail, and not be manoeuvrable. Musk also stated that the 3rd test launch of its Starship giant rocket was about 3 weeks away. SpaceX, in a February 12th statement, said these “early version” […]

February 14, 2024

Operators seek to dismiss Ligado claims

Ligado Networks is suing certain US government Agencies and seeking $40 billion (€37.09bn) in compensation and alleging that the Agencies “roadblocked” Legado’s L-band frequencies and spectrum because the US government wanted the spectrum itself. A number of influential bodies have submitted support to the US Government in asking the Court of Federal Claims to dismiss […]

February 13, 2024

Confusion over Russia using Starlink

A source in Ukraine says that Russia is importing Starlink equipment from Dubai, but at hugely inflated prices. The Ukrainian (Oleg Kutkov), who repairs damaged Starlink equipment, says that Russia is paying between $5,000 and $6,000 per unit. He stresses that Starlink is not officially working in or over Russia but says that Russia and […]

February 12, 2024

Deutsche Bank downgrades Eutelsat

Deutsche Bank’s (DB) advice to clients holding Eutelsat shares is to ‘SELL’ their stock. Its previous advice was to ‘HOLD’ their shares. DB now says its preferred satellites company within its coverage is Luxembourg-based SES which it rates ‘BUY’. DB says it is concerned over operational delays which it says are weighing on its OneWeb […]

February 12, 2024

Space industry forecasts far from perfect

It is always fun going back a few years and Pierre Lionnet, director of research at ASD Eurospace, has done exactly that and gone back to Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) forecasts for the space industry as they saw things in 2015. Lionnet is too polite to say the forecasts were rubbish, but points out that […]

February 12, 2024

SES unveils Astra 1P

A VIP group visited Thales Alenia Space’s satellite manufacturing facility near Cannes, in the south of France, to view SES Astra 1P, its latest satellite and which will be placed at the operator’s prime TV neighbourhood at 19.2 degrees East. The satellite will continue existing transmissions over Europe as well as key markets Germany, France […]

February 9, 2024

Starlink gets tough with Apple/Globalstar

Currently SpaceX’s Starlink system dominates satellite-based broadband and the potential for ‘direct-to-device’ (MSS: Mobile Satellite Service) communications. However, Globalstar is rolling out its smaller constellation and has Apple helping finance its expansion. The initial problem is that both outfits use the same frequencies (as does Dish Network). SpaceX formally complained to the FCC on February […]

February 8, 2024

Coordination problem for AST SpaceMobile

Officials from satellite company AST SpaceMobile met with FCC officials on December 14th 2023 over a potential problem with its frequency registrations. AST is building a super-constellation of satellites with the intention of supply a ‘direct-to-smartphone’ service. AT&T, Vodafone and Google are investors in the company. AST is using Papua New Guinea (PNG) as its […]

February 7, 2024

Europe seeks new rival to Ariane

Europe already has one rival to its giant Ariane rocket in the form of the Vega mid-sized launcher. However, Vega is itself subject to delays caused by a failure at the end of 2022 and in any case is only good for lower weight or orbital tasks. Stephane Israel, chief executive of Arianespace, questioned the […]

February 6, 2024