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Bank: “Eutelsat not out of the woods yet”

Investment bank BNP/Paribas, in its review of Eutelsat’s half-year results, praised the satellite operator saying it was making “good progress” and reducing its balance sheet risks, but warned it “is not out of the woods yet”. BNPP, in its note to clients, stated: “While we remain cautious on the shares in the context of management […]

February 20, 2024

IRIS2 in trouble already?

The EU’s giant IRIS2 broadband by satellite plan is already facing challenges. IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is the European Union’s answer to “pressing challenge of tomorrow, offering enhanced communication capacities to governmental users, businesses, while ensuring high-speed internet broadband to cope with connectivity dead zones.” But there are problems for […]

February 19, 2024

AST SpaceMobile could challenge Starlink

AST SpaceMobile wants to cover the planet with satellite signals that supply ‘direct-to-cellphone’ connectivity. It already has one satellite in orbit (BlueWalker 3) but says its next craft will be “100 times more powerful” in terms of processing bandwidth. AST recently struck agreements with AT&T, Vodafone and Google and says it has terrestrial links with […]

February 16, 2024

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