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.

Boeing satellite for Cayman Islands

Euroconsult’s Paris Business Week saw Boeing confirm it was to build a broadband satellite for the Cayman Islands. GiSAT will provide broadcast and broadband capability to a targeted 35 sub-Saharan nations in Africa. GiSat will use Boeing’s tried and tested HS-702 model satellite for a private consortium based on the Cayman Islands. The satellite to […]

September 13, 2016

Arianespace responds to SpaceX/Proton “issues”

Arianespace is looking at adding another flight to its 2017 planned manifest, and in order to take up some of the delays caused by the recent problems at SpaceX and Russia’s Proton launch system. This year Arianespace is planning to launch 7 times, one less than originally anticipated. The ‘missing’ launch was that of Japan’s […]

September 9, 2016

Spacecom Amos-6 prospects examined

It was time-saving of at least a day in the pre-launch campaign that seemed to have been the reason why Spacecom’s AMOS-6 satellite was sitting on top of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when a conflagration occurred on September 1. A full and exhaustive study is taking place into the explosion at SpaceX, supervised by […]

September 6, 2016

Analyst: Time is right for Fox to buy Sky

A report from Macquarie investment bank has suggested that the time was now right for a deal which would see 21st Century Fox buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already control. “That moment has come, with Sky shares down 32 per cent [this year to date] in US$ terms,” Macquarie’s Guy […]

August 30, 2016

Turkey wants to be bigger satellite player

Turkey says it wants to become one of the top-10 global satellite operators, and wants to have ten satellites in orbit by 2023. Turkey’s Transportation, Maritime and Communication Minister Ahmet Arslan said Türksat is already one of the world’s top 20 satellite operators and their aim is to become one of the world’s top-10 countries […]

August 23, 2016

Sea Launch dispute ‘solved’

Russia’s S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corp (RSC Energia) and the US aerospace giant Boeing reached an agreement to solve their dispute over the Sea Launch rocket project, Energia’s General Director Vladimir Solntsev has said. The Izvestia report on the settlement has not yet been confirmed by US sources. The dispute goes back many years […]

August 22, 2016

Scandal over Kenya Broadcasting j-v

An arbitration action is taking place in London between a Dubai-based businessman, Ajay Sethi, and Kenya’s KBC public broadcaster over a failed joint-venture designed to launch a TV channel, Metro TV, into the country. The action is claiming penalties of $484 million. The allegations are serious enough for locals to say that if KBC loses […]

August 19, 2016

8 launches, but pressure is on for SpaceX

SpaceX completed another ‘double’ success in the early hours of August 14th, launching a satellite and then landing the rocket’s 1st stage. This brought the total of SpaceX launches (for commercial satellites operators and NASA cargo trips) to the International Space Station to eight since January 1st. By comparison, Arianespace has launched just 3 of […]

August 16, 2016

Air wars for aircraft broadband

There are many competent suppliers of In Flight Entertainment systems for airlines. It is also clear that travellers love the broadband connectivity increasingly on offer from the likes of Gogo, Global Eagle Entertainment or Panasonic Avionics. There’s also US-based ViaSat and its Exede airline connectivity service. ViaSat/Exede, as of June 30th, had 509 aircraft equipped […]

August 15, 2016

Recovered satellite to receive ‘post-mortem’

Satellites, once launched, tend not to come back to Earth. Geostationary communications satellites, once they have reached their end-of-life are sent to a ‘graveyard’ orbit a few hundred kilometres above their normal orbits. Other lower-orbiting satellites usually descend to Earth in a safe fireball that burns them up. But back in 1992 a European Space […]

August 11, 2016