Starlink has well over 8,000 satellites in orbit, but they have an orbital life of around five years. The first batch of 60 operational craft were launched in May 2019. This means that some of those early launches have now reached their ‘end of life’ targets. In the six month period from December 2024 to […]

Orbex has delayed its UK rocket launch to 2026 due to site and funding issues. SaxaVord, the launch site in Scotland, isn’t ready, and more financial support is said to be needed to lift off. Orbital Express Launch, or Orbex, is a UK-based aerospace company that is developing a small commercial orbital rocket called Prime.It […]

Boeing has delivered two O3b mPOWER satellites to SES. The pair will be the ninth and tenth members of the O3b mPOWER fleet. The satellites, which feature Boeing’s fully software-defined payload technology to actively allot power to meet user needs, are now en route to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. for a planned launch this summer. […]

AST SpaceMobile’s first launch (FM1) of its second-generation Bluebird broadband satellites has been delayed. July 1st saw AST write to the FCC asking for permission to ship the satellite from its Texas HQ to the Indian launch site and for the FCC to grant an “experimental authority to launch and test” the satellite. AST is […]

Airbus Defence and Space says it is implementing a new organisation structure to shape the company’s future competitiveness, with over 2,000 jobs to go. The new organisation came into effect on July 1st. The Division has completed all information and consultation processes on European as well as national levels for its adaptation plan and has […]

Elon Musk’s plans to start Starlink broadband services in South Africa are currently stymied. But he is reportedly planning an ambitious work-around with a 2 billion Rand (€96m) overall investment in the Southern Africa region to get around local Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) regulations. South Africa’s Business Day reports that Musk will use the investment […]

UK comms regulator Ofcom has opened three separate consultations on its spectrum work, which relate to: changing satellite gateway fees; a proposed new non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) gateway licence for Amazon Kuiper; and introducing short notice, short duration licences in the lower 2.3 GHz band to support demand from the Shared Access and PMSE (programme making […]

Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile have a joint-venture covering AST’s planned ‘direct-to-consumer’ satellite-based cellular service. The pair have chosen Luxembourg as the new company’s headquarters. Mobile operators covering 21 EU member states and other European countries have already expressed an interest in using the service; commercial launches expected from 2026. The planned establishment of the new […]

There are more than a few ‘rivals’ to Starlink, but only Eutelsat’s OneWeb has a full fleet of satellites in orbit with which to challenge Elon Musk’s broadband satellite service. The other major potential rivals are Jeff Bezos-backed Amazon Project Kuiper and Canada’s Telesat and its Lightspeed fleet. But Kuiper has only just started launching […]

The 18th edition of Novaspace’s Earth Observation Satellite Systems report finds 5,770 EO satellites set to launch by 2034, fuelling a $182.6 billion (€155bn) market surge, as national defence priorities shape space strategy. As geopolitical instability drives interest in sovereign EO assets, defence and civil satellites are positioned to overtake commercial deployments . “A new […]