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 […]

For the past few years, London-based Inmarsat has planned to build its own low Earth orbiting mega-constellation, called ‘Orchestra’. It has now emerged that the scheme has probably been cancelled. Larry Paul, Inmarsat VP/corporate business development, speaking at the Smallsat Symposium in California, told delegates that Inmarsat had taken a hard look [at the concept] […]

The space and satellite insurance sector enjoyed their third successive year of profits following losses in 2018 and 2019. The profits were impressive, with $579 million (€534m) in premiums paid and helping offset losses and claims of $294 million. However, the industry is not tapping into the fast-growing Low Earth orbiting market as the likes […]

Comtech Telecommunications, a major supplier of equipment to telcos and the space industry, is building a new factory in Arizona to build modems and targeting the newly-emerging low Earth orbiting sector for new business. Comtech already supplier high-end equipment for the likes of SES which uses the kit on its O3b/mPOWER satellites being built by […]

The EU has given the go-ahead for an independent European Low Earth Orbiting fleet of broadband and satellite navigation craft. The name for the project is IRIS2. An EU ministerial conference approved the spend of €6 billion Internet system in order to ensure Europe’s security by reducing its reliance on foreign – that is non-European […]