Elon Musk’s SpaceX is seeking permission to launch its Starlink broadband-by-satellite service to moving vehicles. Musk, in a Tweet, stressed that Starlink was not targeting Tesla or other cars, but aircraft, ships, large trucks and RVs; “Our terminal is much too big [for cars]” he said. Sami Kassab, satellite analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, said […]

The Richard Branson-backed Virgin Galactic space tourism business is facing more than a few fundamental changes. First up, it is losing its former CEO George Whitesides who changed to Chief Space Officer in July last year, and is now stepping aside but remains of the company’s advisory board. He had been in post since 2010. […]

The $1.8 billion legal claim by SES on Intelsat concerning the SES claim on the split of FCC’s C-band incentive payments rumbles on, but with some tough comments from an SES submission to Intelsat’s bankruptcy court. SES filed its further motion with Intelsat’s bankruptcy court on March 3rd and wants the court to determine which […]

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos looks like suffering delays to his Project Kuiper broadband-by-satellite mega-constellation. Confirmed delays in the availability of his Blue Origin launch rocket could also affect Eutelsat which had reserved a flight on the rocket for one of its satellites. Bezos is backing the Blue Origin rocket launching system and they have delayed […]

Sami Kassab, satellite analyst at investment bank Exane/BNPP, says that Covid-19 was not helping SES achieve its target revenue numbers, but the 9 per cent tumble in SES Video was the worst quarter of the year, and a worry. In a report to clients, Kassab recognised that SES had signed new and renewed orders worth […]

During its results call with analysts, SES explained that its “unparalleled reach” continued to expand. Back in 2016, it reached some 325 million homes (more than a billion people) and was delivering about 7,741 channels. By Q3/2020 its channel count had expanded to 8,157, the Number 1 supplier of channels in the industry. Drilling down […]

Covid-related production problems have hurt the planned launch of EchoStar and Hughes Network’s giant Jupiter 3 satellite. It has now slipped to H2/2022 after originally being scheduled for some time this year. EchoStar 24/Jupiter 3 is a large, multi-spot-beam Ka-band craft and described as one of the world’s highest capacity broadband satellites. It is being […]

A report from investment bank Jefferies says that despite Vivendi’s plan to spin-off its Universal Music Group (UMG) before the end of the year – and to distribute 60 per cent of the new share capital to existing Vivendi shareholders – their overall view is that Vivendi’s current share price is “fully valued”. “Even adopting […]

Israel-based Gilat Satellite Networks has already delivered successful in-orbit testing of its 5G/Low Earth Orbiting VSAT technology. Now marketed as ‘Aquarius’, the system was on board Telesat’s first pair of test satellites and delivered connectivity as the first ever demo of 5G over a LEO satellite, and then the fastest-ever modem speeds of 1.2 Gb/s […]

Elon Musk’s broadband-by-satellite Starlink business is readying to open for business in Europe. The markets invited include France, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Italy and others. It plans to launch its service in these European markets in mid to late 2021 on a “first come, first served basis”. Its service will deliver broadband internet connexions at 50-150Mbps […]