Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite system has been approved for activity in Mexico. Users can access the technology from October 28th and the licence will run for 10 years. Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) received the Starlink application on April 2nd this year and the licence was granted on May 28th. The system must be operational […]
Elon Musk’s massive Starship is being assembled at its Starbase launch facility at BocaChica in south Texas. The Super Heavy Starship rocket is simply huge; The bottom, booster, stage stands 70 metres tall. Then SpaceX has added another 50 metres of the upper stage and the total combination of some 120 metres, and the end […]
Currently the EU, mostly via the European Space Agency (ESA) and other national space bodies, has totally supported the development of Arianespace’s ‘next generation’ Ariane 6 rocket. However, the development of Ariane 6 (A-6) has been delayed and not helped by Covid restrictions. The original concept was also that A-6 would be significantly cheaper to […]
A Californian motorist was stopped and issued a penalty ticket issued for using a Starlink dish mounted on the car’s front hood. The driver was stopped by California’s Highway Patrol (CHP). The car, a Prius hybrid, had one of SpaceX’s Starlink ‘pizza sized’ dishes along with its connecting cable running across the front window and […]
A webcast organised by the Asia-Pacific Satellite Communications Council heard some negative comments on the likely impact of Low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites. Most of the criticism came from operators of geostationary satellites. For example, Hispasat’s CTO Antonio Abad Martin spoke extensively about the business model in place for geostationary (GEO) operators, and said they […]
Russia’s Roscosmos space agency says there’s a risk that a SpaceX Starlink satellite will get “dangerously close” to Russia’s Progress MS-17/78 cargo craft. Progress MS-17/78 was launched on June 29th aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket and is due to arrive at the International Space Station in the early overnight hours (GMT) of July 2nd. The decommissioned […]
June 30th saw a routine SpaceX launch lifting 88 smaller satellites into orbit on its Transporter-2 special flight. The Falcon 9 rocket booster landed some 10 minutes later back onto its concrete launch pad. It was yet another success for the Elon Musk concept of reusable rockets. But the news was somewhat overshadowed by a […]
Turkey’s latest satellite, Türksat 5A, has been commercialised by the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a commissioning ceremony. Türksat 5A operates from 31 degrees East. President Erdoğan also told attendees that its latest satellite Türksat 6A, now under construction, would launch next year. Turkey is building the satellite itself, and Erdoğan said that Turkey […]
Elon Musk, writing on Twitter on June 25th, said that all 72 orbital planes – that is the route his Starlink satellites take when circling the planet – will be active in August. He added that global coverage will then be activated except for the polar regions which will take a further six months. This […]
Mobile Viewpoint, a Dutch based developer and world leading manufacturer of live streaming technology solutions, has announced the integration of Starlink as part of their offerings for network connection. With the launch of new low orbit satellites for global network coverage by the likes of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Amazon’s Kuiper, the outlook for remote […]