SpaceX is being sued by the US Department of Justice with allegations that the rocket company has been biased in its hiring of staff. The civil lawsuit alleges that SpaceX has deliberately not hired former refugees and asylum seekers. SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because […]
Viasat is suffering from another satellite loss which is malfunctioning in orbit. Viasat already has problems with its ViaSat-3 Americas satellite launched on May 1st. But this fresh problem occurs with Inmarsat’s I6-F2 satellite which was launched in February. The Inmarsat craft suffered a failure with its power system while climbing in orbit to where […]
EchoStar-owned Hughes Network Systems has won a 5-year contract from the US Space Force. Valued at up to $500 million it has a potential 5-year extension option. The contract will benefit OneWeb and EchoStar’s Lyra S-band system. Hughes has a distribution contract in place with OneWeb, itself just days away from merging with Eutelsat. The […]
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service is active in South Africa despite not having been granted an operating licence. A licence is a considerable challenge for Starlink given that the company does not comply with South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment programme (BBBEE) which is an obligation and designed to enhance the economic participation of Black […]
MediaMarkt-Saturn, a giant electronics retailer in Germany, has started selling Starlink equipment throughout the country. Pre-orders are being taken for delivery after September 8th. The prices are competitive compared to other markets. The equipment (antenna, dish, cabling) comes in at €449 (includes all taxes) and can also be paid in 10 interest-free payments of €44.90, […]
An August 22nd launch by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket marked the 100th launch of Starlink satellites. The launch also broke many other records. The Vandenberg Space Force Station launch completed SpaceX’s 218th landing of one of the Falcon 9 boosters and the 114th consecutive landing. However, perhaps the most impressive achievement is that the […]
Sweden-based Ovzon, which has a growing mobile broadband satellite business, has been awarded a 12-month service renewal contract from Airbus Defence and Space for the third consecutive year to deliver Ovzon SATCOM-as-a-Service to the UK Government. Ovzon also stated that trading has been something of a “bumpy ride” these past months. It reported poor H1 […]
Malaysia Airlines has chosen Viasat for its In-Flight Communications and Entertainment (IFE) aboard its new Boeing 737-8 fleet of aircraft. Malaysia Airlines will also introduce high-quality internet connectivity on its 737-8 aircraft. The agreement encompasses factory installation of Viasat’s equipment on its aircraft, the first of which is expected to be delivered to Malaysia Airlines […]
A set of preliminary accounts for SpaceX shows that “soaring revenues” helped Elon Musk’s rocket and broadband company to a modest profit in Q1 2023, according to the WSJ. The report says SpaceX achieved $55 million (€50.6m) in profits on $1.5 billion of revenues in Q1. Over the previous two years, SpaceX has invested huge […]
UK comms regulator Ofcom has set out proposals to make more radio spectrum available for use by ‘earth station gateways’ – large dishes on the ground that connect a satellite network to the Internet. Gateways allow satellite operators to support a range of broadband services in the UK, such as helping to better connect homes […]