Originally scheduled for May 17th, then postponed 24 hours because of Tropical Storm Arthur, SpaceX now says it is holding off the launch of another batch of Starlink satellites until after May 27th. May 27th sees SpaceX launch its important Demo-2 commercial crew mission for NASA. The launch, when it happens, will be the seventh […]
The bankruptcy and sell-off of mega-constellation OneWeb’s assets has become extremely interesting. Analysts at Quilty Analytics were on the case and suggesting that the auction now has 30 interested parties having signed NDAs, and that with Chinese, British, French and US interests involved it is turning into a real-life Game of Thrones. Indeed, Quilty says […]
On May 14th, SpaceX filed a document with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) saying that the rocket launch company does not expect the current Covid-19 crisis will affect its ability to meet the FCC’s accelerated [launch] timeline at SpaceX’s standard fees of $62 million per Falcon 9 launch. This prompted a note to clients from […]
Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy is likely to take between 6-12 months to process and allow the satellite operator to cut its $17 billion of debt by about half. CCO Samer Halawi, talking to Space News, said that despite the bankruptcy procedure the operator was still able to order next-generation satellites because of the bankruptcy court’s […]
Eutelsat’s Q3 numbers were “in line with expectations [and] a return to quarter-on-quarter growth with ongoing signs of commercial dynamism in emerging markets with a new DTH platform in Sub-Saharan Africa and the extension of a contract in the Balkans,” stated CEO Rodolphe Belmer on May 14th. Belmer also welcomed progress on C-band over the […]
As long expected, Intelsat has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it will restructure itself under ‘Debtor in Possession’ (DiP) rules. Intelsat says it is fully backing the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plan for the auction of some of its C-band frequencies over the US for 5G usage. It says it has raised $1 […]
A SpaceX rocket should launch on May 17th with an extra 60 Starlink satellites on board from Cape Canaveral. The launch, scheduled for 4am Florida time on Sunday morning and subject to the usual weather constraints, will be the 7th batch of satellites to be launched on SpaceX’s highly reusable Falcon 9 rockets. The last […]
Maxar Technologies is building a new high-power satellite for EchoStar’s Hughes Network Systems. The craft is likely to suffer a delayed launch because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Jupiter-3 satellite is huge and capable of carrying up to 500 gigabit/second of transmissions. It was planned to launch in 2021 and serve North and South America […]
High Altitude Platform Services – or stratospheric balloons – are a key part of Google’s broadband-to-the-planet policy. Earlier this year a group of telecoms, aviation and technology companies, including Japan’s SoftBank and Alphabet Loon (the Google spin-off business looking after its balloon strategy) formed the HAPS Alliance. The concept is simple: Float a series of […]
Maxar Technologies, announcing its Q1 results, says it has received a “multi-hundred million dollar contract award to build multiple satellites”. Maxar would not divulge the client but it is widely believed that this is the order for – some if not all – of the replacement C-band craft which will follow on from the FCC […]