EchoStar-owned broadband-by-satellite service HughesNet has reportedly lost more than 30 per cent of its subscribers over the past three years with Starlink seemingly picking up the cancellations. Some of the comments suggest that for HughesNet subscribers “in a deep valley with limited potential visibility of Starlink” they will have to stay with HughesNet. Other HughesNet […]
The fallout from the collapsed merger between Zee Entertainment and Sony’s India broadcasting activities continues. Zee’s share price has collapsed (down 26 per cent on January 23rd) and most local analysts suggest that Zee will be under increased financial and shareholder pressure and probable litigation. At least six Indian brokerages also said investors should sell […]
There are currently two Spaceports being built in northern Scotland and seeking rocket launch business. The two (Sutherland Spaceport on the A’Mhoine peninsula and SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst, Shetland) could be one too many says a senior figure at SaxaVord. Scott Hammond, deputy CEO and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport, told a Scottish parliamentary committee […]
Justus Parmar, CEO of Fortuna Investments, and a close observer of the satellite industry, suggests that Elon Musk is only just getting started in terms of potential size and impact of SpaceX on satellite. Parmar’s team are already investors in the space sector, and according to a Constellations conversation with Kratos Defence, he suggests that […]
Texas-based AST SpaceMobile, which wants to provide a global satellite-to-smartphone services, has received some major investments from major telcos and Google. But there’s also bad news. The cash, totalling some $263 million (€241.4m), comes from AT&T, Vodafone and Google. The finance, according to consultant Dr Tim Farrar (of TMF Association) suggests that the extra cash […]
Fitch Ratings has affirmed satellite operator Viasat and its subsidiaries’ Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘BB-‘ and removed all ratings from Rating Watch Negative (RWN) – which is good news for the company. Fitch has resolved the RWN as it expects Viasat’s debt leverage to decline and sustain within the current EBITDA leverage sensitivities […]
Back on August 1st 2023, your author somewhat optimistically wrote ‘SES vs Intelsat nears conclusion‘. How wrong that was. The headline was based on a successful appeal won by SES and an instruction made by the appeal court Judge Robert Payne to the lower court to find in SES’s favour. “The judgement of the Bankruptcy […]
Investment bank BNPP, in a major examination of three key satellite operators and their share prices, says SES, Eutelsat and Telesat have remained under pressure – with only Telesat making some modest headway because of its progress with its Lightspeed low Earth orbit constellation. In a self-examination of what it got right (and wrong) in […]
Not everything in the space industry’s garden is in perfect shape. Space company Momentus once valued at over $1 billion, is running out of money and does not have a financial lifeline. On January 12th it postponed its next mission. Momentus was established emerged with seed funding in November 2018 and was created to o […]
Elon Musk addressed an ‘all hands’ staff Town Hall meeting at the SpaceX Starship site in south Texas on January 12th. He said that the “three Rs: Reliability, Reusable Rockets” were key to SpaceX’s success. Other news also emerged. Some mundane, others perhaps more important. The mundane was that there will be new restaurant, café […]