Advanced Television

Inside Satellite

Chris Forrester

Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.

Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ

Declan Ganley, CEO of Rivada Space, visited Terran Orbital’s brand-new production site at Irvine, California on April 17th and held a Town Hall meeting of the two companies’ staff. The visit was far from routine and was a clear indication of Rivada’s importance to Terran’s financial future. Ganley was inspecting what will be the main […]

April 18, 2024

Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case

The London High Court has ruled that Avanti Communications, a London-based speciality satellite operator, was correct in assessing its all-important spectrum as a relevant asset in its recent financial reconstruction. The decision, by Mr Justice Johnson and published on April 12th by the National Law Review, was crucially important to Avanti. The Court’s background to […]

April 16, 2024

SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers

SpaceX has received good news from India’s government with reports that its Starlink broadband service is to receive an “expedited” fast-track approval to operate in India ahead of Elon Musk’s visit to the country. Starlink was also authorised for use in Albania last week. However, there are doubts in some quarters over Starlink’s profitability. Bloomberg, […]

April 15, 2024

IRIS2 already in trouble?

IRIS2, which is a massive European project to provide an independent broadband-by-satellite service for the military, governments and consumers, is facing some major headaches. IRIS2 (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) had been planned to be deployed by 2027. That date is now extremely doubtful, and the scheme already faces challenges of anticipated […]

April 12, 2024

Intelsat contemplates next steps

It was recently reported how Intelsat was facing up to its future and how it would compete with rival satellite operators. More detail has now emerged. Intelsat has been through something of a nightmare this past few years, emerging – more or less – from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with much reduced interest obligations and the […]

April 10, 2024

SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value

SpaceX says it now has 2.7 million “customers – a rise of 100,000 in just three weeks. This is a growth rate of some 4,700 new users per day. If this rate is maintained, then another 1 million users by year-end is possible if not probable. A report from analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley […]

April 9, 2024

Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle

On March 21st aerospace giant Boeing entered a writ against Virgin Galactic in the US District Court of Virginia. The action alleged that Virgin owed Boeing $26 million (€24m) and that it had misappropriated certain IP and trade secrets associated with the development for a new space tourism aircraft for Virgin. Boeing, and an associated […]

April 8, 2024

Jupiter-3 a changemaker

EchoStar’s Jupiter-3 satellite is a true giant for subsidiary HughesNet. When stowed within the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket (on July 28th 2023) it was described as being about the size of a school bus. Within hours of its launch it was successfully receiving and sending signals. However, today’s picture is not quite so rosy. Despite […]

April 5, 2024

Terran Orbital is again Compliant

Terran Orbital, which has a very healthy order book for smaller satellites (including 300 for Rivada Networks), is again “compliant” as far as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is concerned. It means that its shares have been traded at above $1 per share since late-February. NYSE rules state that shares priced below $1 cannot […]

April 4, 2024

SpaceX: Triple launch including Eutelsat

SpaceX engineers had a busy March 30th. They successfully launched Eutelsat’s latest satellite (36D) from Cape Kennedy and managed another launch a couple of hours later which carried their own first batch of Starlink broadband satellites for the weekend. But a planned third launch (from California) was scrubbed because of bad weather. The third launch […]

April 2, 2024