In addition to announcing a strategic partnership with Intelsat and agreeing satellite launch contracts with Arianespace, OneWeb has raised $500 million of funding from a group of leading international companies, including Airbus Group, Bharti Enterprises, Hughes Network Systems, (Hughes), a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp., Intelsat, Qualcomm Incorporated, The Coca-Cola Company, the Virgin Group, and Totalplay, […]

Intelsat has formed a “strategic alliance” with Greg Wyler’s OneWeb scheme to place 650 small satellites in orbit. Intelsat is investing $25 million in the project. OneWeb’s plan, in essence, is to bring improved broadband and Internet services to the planet’s underserved (on non-served) consumers. A joint statement reads: “The strategic partnership will result in […]

This Sunday (June 28th) Space Exploration (SpaceX) will try for the third time to land one of its returning rockets onto a floating landing stage. The rocket will have helped boost the delivery to the International Space Station of routine supplies within its Dragon capsule, but the big test then follows when SpaceX attempts to […]

Israel’s government has approved a plan by Bezeq to take full control of satellite TV operator Yes after determining it would not harm competition in the multi-channel TV market. The approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, acting as communications minister, came after Israel’s cable and satellite TV council said there was no reason to reject […]

Eutelsat Communications is set to launch its latest satellite which will provide the capacity required to accelerate the deployment of higher definition television services to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The Eutelsat 8 West B satellite will be located at 7/8° West and further strengthens this position as the hotspot for television […]

Russia’s largest cellular phone operator MTS (Mobile TeleSystems) is reportedly about to enter the pay-TV market. Russian news site Comnews.Ru suggests that the business will extend the existing service based in and around Moscow and which had a ‘soft’ launch last November, and the Russian ‘far East’, to a nationwide DTH service. Few doubt that […]

Commercial satellite provider Space Systems/Loral (SSL) has been selected to provide a broadcasting satellite for Japan’s Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT). The satellite will be used for Direct-to-Home (DTH) television service in Japan. “The BSAT-4a satellite represents our fourth satellite contract award for the Japanese market in the last two years,” said John Celli, president […]

Telenor Satellite Broadcasting (TSBc) has confirmed that THOR 7, which was successfully launched into geostationary transfer orbit on board an Ariane 5 launcher on April 26th 2015, has now completed its in-orbit testing and reached its final orbital location at 1°West. The THOR 7 satellite was officially handed over to TSBc’s satellite control centre on […]

SpaceX, founded by PayPal billionaire Elon Musk, is working hard to recover and reuse its Falcon-9 rocket launchers. It has had two ‘near misses’ when the returning rocket almost made it to the floating recovery landing stage. But ‘almost’ is not good enough. But besides Mr Musk there’s at least one other key individual who […]