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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

That’s the problem when a free-to-air network spends $1.23 billion on TV rights for the Olympic Games, they have to earn that cash back – and make a profit.  The 2016 Rio opening ceremony, at 4.5 hours, seemed to some commentators on social media that NBC was attempting to break broadcasting records by airing more […]

Avanti Communications saw a dramatic jump in its share price on August 4th. At the start of the day the well-depressed shares were priced at 22p, but as the day progressed at one point they had almost doubled in value (to 39p) helped by a news report on the FT’s Alphaville news blog. At the […]

SES is sitting on a potential cash war-chest equal to some $1.6 billion (€1.47bn) which could be spent on a global broadband satellite system. The cash pile is building up now as part of the operator’s financial planning and will fully be in place by 2020. Reports in trade magazine Space News say that SES […]

July 29th saw Eutelsat unveil its end-of-year results. It also gave market analysts a chance to question the CEO Rodolphe Belmer on the satellite operator’s strategy. Analysts eagerly wanted to know what the latest news was on Eutelsat’s move to sell its 33.69 per cent stake in Madrid-based operator Hispasat. Somewhat focusing the equity analysts’ minds […]