Colombia has scrapped plans to buy and launch its own $250 million satellite, and instead will continue to lease capacity, data and imagery from other international satellite operators.

Colombia’s vice-president German Vargas says the country does not have the budget. “We have explored the possibility over the last few years but the government concluded that at this time is too inconvenient, unfortunately the country is not in the economic capacity to make this investment,” Vargas said.

Colombia is currently spending around $10 million a year buying information including communications, land observation (for illicit crop monitoring), and national security.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

Categories: Blogs, DTH/Satellite, Inside Satellite