The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed that its pre-launch Readiness Review of the Ariane 6 rocket had been wholly satisfactory, and that ESA had given the green light for a July 9th launch. Currently, and subject to the usual weather considerations, the launch window from Europe’s spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana is scheduled […]
The European Commission wants to build a new satellite constellation called IRIS2. A consortium (SpaceRise) has submitted its best and final bid to secure the contract to build the highly-secure system which will be targeted at military, governmental and potentially consumer users. However, Germany has not been keen on the proposal and has issued very […]
A Chinese mega-constellation of an eventual 15,000 low Earth orbiting satellites will start launching in a few weeks. The fleet will rival Starlink in size. The project is backed by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (Yuanxin Satellite). The constellation, named G60 Qianfan, will see the first batch of 18 satellites launched around August 5th. Subsequent rocket […]
Pacôme Révillon, CEO of Novaspace (the name of the merged Euroconsult and SpaceTec) says that SpaceX’s Starlink broadband by satellite system has been “transformative” in terms of its maritime customers. Speaking to Constellations, Révillon said that shipping is a highly complex environment, not least because of the variety of rules and obligations and just like […]
Azercosmos has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese technology company Star.vision. The signing ceremony took place at Azercosmos during the visit of the Star.vision company delegation to the Republic of Azerbaijan. The main goal of the memorandum is to engage in strategic cooperation for the joint development and application of the necessary algorithms […]
Rivada Space Networks has secured a major slice of the cash needed to build and launch its mega-constellation of an initial 300 satellites. German newspaper Handelsblatt reports that Rivada has collected €10 billion in pre-order commitments from 113 “potential customers”. The report adds that it has also attracted investment cash from 70 investors including a […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a reality check to its fellow-regulators around the world saying that low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites beaming broadband signals cannot switch their transmissions off when passing over an unfriendly nation. The FCC response followed a complaint from Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology about alleged illegal Starlink […]
The Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad has been pinpointed as being one source of numerous interferences on European satellites owned by SES, Eutelsat and others. The United Nations agency that oversees communications technology ha said that Russia should “immediately cease any deliberate action to cause harmful interference to frequency assignments of other administrations,” in a […]
Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile has written to partners, shareholders and even “future space-based cellular broadband network users” with an update on where the business is, especially following on the recent commitment by Verizon, which has joined AT&T in backing the company. Avellan describes Verizon and AT&T as the US industry […]
SpaceX is contemplating another fundraising operation by selling shares in a tender offer that could value the closely held company at roughly $200 billion (€185.7bn), according to Bloomberg. SpaceX is reportedly discussing a tender offer — a transaction that enables employees and insiders like investors to sell shares — that may kick in days, said […]