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.

Analyst: “What to do with 30,000 satellites?”

In December 2022, the FCC granted a partial approval for a SpaceX application for a massive expansion to its mega-constellation. The FCC said that the Elon Musk Starlink broadband business could go ahead with launching 7,500 ‘Generation 2’ satellites, but has declined to approve an application for a further 30,000 satellites. A report from Quilty […]

January 10, 2023

Cornwall’s Spaceport ready for business

Subject to last-minute weather limitations, January 9th should see Virgin Orbit’s converted 747 jet, ‘Cosmic Girl’, take off with its LauncherOne rocket fixed under its port wing. The aircraft will leave Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay with the 70ft rocket and its cargo. That cargo is a batch of nine smallish satellites which it will deploy […]

January 9, 2023

Indonesia’s Satria-1 suffers further delays

Indonesia’s important 150 Gb/s broadband satellite, Satria-1, is already late in being delivered from its manufacturers with delays caused by component shortages from Covid-related problems. The craft was due for launch in March 2022, then March 2023 which will be missed. Now, Indonesia is asking the ITU in Geneva to permit a delay of its […]

January 6, 2023

Thales highlights 2023 plans

Thales Alenia Space has praised the European Space Agency (ESA) and its $16.9 billion (€15.9bn) – up 17 per cent – budget for the next three years. Against this backdrop, Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67 per cent) and Leonardo (33 per cent) said it would be building on 2022’s success where […]

January 5, 2023

SES vs Intelsat rages on

A slew of legal documents were submitted to Intelsat’s Chapter 11 post-bankruptcy reorganisation on December 28th by lawyers for Intelsat. In essence, the filings represent the Final Report on Intelsat’s post-bankruptcy proceedings and an application to close certain outstanding matters. One particular argument is over $12 million of expense and cost claims (“Bill of Costs”) […]

January 3, 2023

Arianespace loss: Independent inquiry ordered

The loss of a valuable Vega-C rocket and two Airbus satellites (valued at some €200 million) has resulted in Arianespace ordering an independent inquiry commission. An Arianespace statement said they and the European Space Agency (ESA) immediately decided to appoint an independent inquiry commission. “This commission is tasked with analysing the reasons for the failure […]

December 22, 2022

Virgin Orbit gets UK licences for space launch

Virgin Orbit has received the final licences from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to commence launches from Spaceport Cornwall, in Newquay, UK. The CAA said that Sir Richard Branson’s company demonstrated it has “taken all reasonable steps to ensure safety risks arising from launch activities are as low as reasonably practicable”. Virgin Orbit could […]

December 21, 2022By Chris Forrester

Space tourism has a new player

There are plenty of well-known players looking to tap into the market for so-called space tourism, not least Sir Richard Branson and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos. Now they might have new competitor in the shape of Halo Space, and balloon flights. Spain-based Halo Space has successfully flown a prototype stratospheric balloon up some 23 miles […]

December 16, 2022

8K TVs stymied by EU regulations

Would-be viewers to high-end televisions are always impressed by 8K Ultra High-Definition images. Indeed, even 8K (from sources such as YouTube) when viewed on a decent 4K set with high dynamic range installed, cannot help but be amazed at the image quality. These images are similar in concept to those when 4K was embryonic. They […]

December 15, 2022

SpaceX value rises to $140bn

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has again raised cash from its investors. The plan has been on the table since mid-November with SpaceX reported to have offered shares at around $77 (€72.50) per share according to Bloomberg. If correct, then this would value the privately-held business at around $140 billion depending on the value of the secondary […]

December 15, 2022