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.
July 9th is the scheduled launch date for the much-delayed test flight European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket. However, last week saw Europe’s important weather organisation cancel its launch contract on an Ariane 6 flight. Worse, perhaps, the cancellation was made in favour of Arianespace’s arch-rival SpaceX. Eumetsat, in a June 28th statement, said […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
Munich-based Alpine Space Ventures has raised $155 million (€144.6m) for its space-focused venture capital fund, and says it expects this to grow to $160 million by the end of June. Co-founder of the business Joram Voelklein says the fund has received “sizeable” investments from the European Investment Fund (EIF) of €60 million and NATO’s Innovation […]
Satellite operator SES has its latest satellite, Astra 1P (also known as SES-24) on SpaceX’s Florida launch pad. Subject to the usual weather considerations it should launch on June 19th at 5.25pm Eastern time. As this is written, however, there are strong winds at the Cape which might delay the launch which was originally scheduled […]
Aerospacelab, a Belgian start-up, has commenced building a factory designed to produce up to 500 satellites annually. The new company, financed in part by national and regional aid, plans to start building satellites weighing from 150 kgs each up to one tonne. It already has eight satellites in orbit, four of which were launched on […]
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