Viasat, which only a few weeks ago was celebrating the acquisition of London-based Inmarsat, is suffering a massive crisis of shareholder confidence following news of its problems with its new ViaSat-3 Americas (VS-3A) satellite. Its shares opened on July 13th at $42.98 and closed on the day at $30.74, a net fall of 28.48 per […]
China has unveiled its plans for a fleet of ‘Very Low Earth Orbiting’ satellite to be completed in orbit by 2030. The craft will come from a Chinese state-owned firm (The Second Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. CASIC) and confirmed on the opening day of the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace […]
Viasat’s brand new – but long delayed – satellite, ViaSat-3, only launched on May 1st, has suffered problems with its antenna. A statement from Viasat issued after the market closed on July 12th said that an unexpected event occurred during reflector deployment that may materially impact the performance of the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite. “Viasat and […]
Mobile industry trade body the GSMA and European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) to bring the mobile and satellite industries closer together to collaborate on developing new, innovative satellite and terrestrial networks technologies. The ambition of the partnership is to further strengthen the competitiveness of both mobile and satellite network […]
Australian telco Optus, in collaboration with SpaceX have agreed to deliver mobile connectivity using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation. Together, Optus and SpaceX plan to cover 100 per cent of Australia. “Optus has always thought differently about what it means to deliver connectivity to our customers, and today we proudly provide mobile coverage to 98.5 per […]
UK-based rocket and spaceflight company, Orbex, has extended its footprint by over 30 per cent across its Scottish and Danish design and production facilities in preparation for the launch of its Prime rocket. The company is adding an extra 1,500 square metres of factory and office space to its existing 4,750 square meter estate in […]
Rivada Space Networks, fresh with the positive news from the ITU’s Radio Regulations Board that its planned launches for two 300 satellite constellations can go ahead, has announced a partnership with IEC Telecom for land and maritime connectivity. Rivada is seeking business for its ‘OuterNet’ satellite scheme and supplying large quantities of data to government […]
A report from analysts at Bryce Technology says that launching communications satellites dominate the Q1 rocket activity. A total of 869 satellites were launched during Q1. Most of that 869 overall launched were communications craft (81 per cent) and were handled by SpaceX which during Q1, managed 21 launches and 763 actual craft placed into […]
India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is to transfer its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) rocket launcher to the private sector. ISRO already has a commercial arm (NewSpace India) which took over responsibility for selling access to space in March 2019 and selling services to non-India clients. NewSpace India, wholly government owned, took over responsibility from […]
July 7th saw SpaceX launch 48 Starlink broadband satellites into their transfer orbits. The launch was from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. On July 9th at 11.58 pm (Florida time) another batch of 22 satellites was launched from Cape Canaveral. That launch saw the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster successfully land onto a […]