Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband-by-satellite system, potentially the main rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink, has again delayed its launch date. Kuiper’s first satellites will not now launch much before the end of the year. The company talks about Q4, but has not given a firm date. Amazon had previously said that its debut satellites would launch […]
Intelsat has signed a contract with Starfish Space for a geostationary satellite space tug servicing mission which will take place in 2026. Starfish Space’s ‘Otter’ rescue satellite will attach itself to an already retired Intelsat craft to validate that the system can work. This test linkage will be followed by another rescue mission for an […]
Eutelsat’s OneWeb division had an agreement in place with Thailand’s National Telecom (NT) but the state telecom business has put a hold on the agreement for at least 30 days, and perhaps longer. NT’s executive board suspended the deal in order that its legal sub-committee can examine the contract’s terms and conditions and in the […]
US telco giant AT&T is already a financial backer of AST SpaceMobile (and has guaranteed a $20 million revenue commitment). AST plans on circling the globe with its ‘direct-to-cellular’ satellite service. Unconfirmed reports suggest that AT&T expects some 30-40 per cent of its US clients to take a low-cost add-on service for connection to AST […]
The launch of the European Space Agency’s all-new Ariane 6 rocket gets ever-closer. Last week technicians at ESA’s Kourou, French Guiana spaceport completed a full ‘wet’ dress rehearsal of the rocket which was fully fuelled. The rocket took on about 180 metric tonnes of propellant and all was subsequently drained following the tests which included […]
Airbus Space & Defence has problems. Unlike its major rival Boeing, there’s nothing wrong with its A320 aircraft production, but Airbus’s troubled space division has implemented a €900 million write down in charges – effectively losses against its Q2 2024 revenues – and Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said a thorough review has led to a […]
Deutsche Bank has delivered a favourable report on the prospects for would-be satellite-to-cellular operator AST SpaceMobile. The bank forecasts that by the end of 2006 it estimates AST will have more than 56 million subscribers to its satellite-to-cellular 5G system. Currently, AST has only a single satellite in orbit (its BlueWalker 3 test craft) but […]
Boca Raton-based satellite builder, Terran Orbital, has received formal notification from the New York Stock Exchange that the company was in ‘non-compliance’ with its rules. The NYSE rules are that shares must stay above $1 in value. Terran’s share price is currently just 74 cents and for the past month it has been below $1. […]
Astra 1P was successfully launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 5.35pm Florida time on June 20th. The SES satellite, and its SpaceX launch partner, broke many records in the process. The Astra 1P satellite will be the most powerful ever placed at the 19.2 degrees orbital slot, and will replace four existing satellites. […]
The European Space Agency (ESA) has always worked on the basis that it would reward contributing nations with contracts that were more or less equal to their investments into ESA. There are 22 member states in ESA including the UK. This return on investment is dubbed by ESA as its “geographic return”. A meeting of […]