Viasat of California and London-based Inmarsat can now wrap up their much-awaited merger plan. The final regulatory approval, from the European Commission, was granted on May 25th. The two companies expect their merger to conclude “in days” and by the end of May. The European Commission (EC) was concerned that the merger scheme would limit […]

Inmarsat has announced that Rajeev Suri will stand down as chief executive on completion of the company’s sale to Viasat. Suri has been nominated by the shareholder consortium that acquired Inmarsat in 2019 to serve as a Board Director of Viasat upon completion of the sale. He will also be involved with ensuring a smooth […]

The UK’s Space Agency is making available £50 million (€57.5m) into space-related R&D. The cash will match individual businesses and their own investment in infrastructure projects. Would-be recipients have to apply by July 5th, and applications are now open. The Agency says that 55 per cent of the cash will be awarded to companies outside […]

Avanti Communications has completed the second phase of its project to build a new HYLAS 4 satellite gateway station in Dakar, Senegal. The new Ka-band antenna, which is 9.2m in diameter, stands 14m and weighs 17,000kg,  has taken over 12 months to build in a facility in the US, before being shipped to Dakar. The […]

SpaceX’s Starlink is building community-based high-speed access to the internet by supplying its satellite kit to rural populations. In Mexico, where some half of the population have no Internet access, it is installing equipment for the Mexican federal government’s ‘Internet para Todos’ (Internet for all) scheme. It is available at more than 3,000 locations, says […]

Satellite Vu, the UK climate tech company, has announced their Series A2 of £12.7 million (€14.6m) bringing their total investment to £30.5 million in Venture Capital funding to accelerate its mission to provide sustainable solutions to global issues. The A2 round was led by Molten Ventures, with participation from Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC, A/O Proptech, Lockheed […]

Azercosmos and satellite operator Intelsat have signed a commercial agreement on the joint implementation of long-term projects in the West African region. According to the agreement, Intelsat will provide Cellular Backhaul (CBH) services to its customers in the West African region, which has 17 countries and a population of more than 430 million, by using […]

Once upon a time there was Sea Launch, a US/Norway/Russia/Ukraine consortium that used a converted oil-rig plus a support ship, to equatorially launch rockets and their satellites from the sea and using Zenit rockets. Sea Launch operated from 1999 to 2014 and successfully launched 32 rockets, although suffered a total of three complete failures and […]

Gogo Business Aviation has launched its Gogo Galileo product line with the unveiling of a second electronically steered antenna (ESA) form factor for use on its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband solution. Gogo serves the business aviation market with its In-Flight Communications service. The new equipment has already caught the eye of OneWeb. Gogo says […]

SpaceX has scheduled the launch of Arabsat’s latest satellite for May 23rd. Launch is scheduled for 11.25 pm Florida-time, but the mission launch is very much subject to local weather considerations. A back-up launch could happen exactly 24-hours later if weather halts the mission. BADR-8 is a latest next-generation geostationary Eurostar Neo satellite from Airbus. […]