Advanced Television

Satellite

Giuliano Berretta RIP

Satellite operator Eutelsat has announced the passing of Giuliano Berretta, its former Chairman and CEO, at the age of 84. It described him as a “visionary and a pioneer”  who played a key role in shaping the history of Eutelsat and the European space sector. An engineer by training, a graduate of the University of […]

May 28, 2025By Colin Mann

Third time unlucky for Musk and SpaceX

SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket failed again. It was the ninth test flight but the third failure in a row for the massive 122-metre-high rocket. The flight spun out of control about halfway through the mission but failed to achieve some of its key targets. However, the flight engineers can take some modest comfort in that […]

May 28, 2025By Chris Forrester

Intelsat gains access to India

Intelsat has received permission from the Indian government to provide extensive satellite coverage directly to India’s broadcast media companies. The move represents “a significant regulatory achievement that puts Intelsat on an accelerated path to offering new services and further India investment,” said Intelsat. Intelsat has secured authorisation for four geostationary (GEO) satellites providing C-band coverage […]

May 28, 2025By Chris Forrester

How will Musk square the Indian subscriber circle?

Starlink subscribers around the world pay anything between $120 (USA), A$139 (Australia), €49 (average in Europe) and Ksh 6500 (in Kenya). But SpaceX has a major dilemma in setting its pricing structure in India. Not only is India a market with plenty of established cellular competition, but also vigorous competition from Eutelsat’s OneWeb and RelianceJio/SES, […]

May 28, 2025

Satellogic: “We need to raise fresh cash”

Satellogic is a company specialising in Earth-observation satellites, founded in 2010 by Emiliano Kargieman and Gerardo Richarte. It began launching their Aleph-1 constellation of ÑuSat satellites in May 2016. The company is listed on the Nasdaq exchange (as SATL) however it currently has its headquarters in the British Virgin Islands although this is being moved […]

May 28, 2025By Chris Forrester

Tensions in South Africa over Starlink approval

Elon Musk’s previous comments that South Africa’s government was allegedly “racist” were raised during the tense meeting between President Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House last week. Musk was present during the meeting but did not speak. South African billionaire Johann Rupert did speak and moved to quell tensions with remarks that […]

May 27, 2025

Ofcom consults on Starlink spectrum usage

UK comms regulator Ofcom is consulting on a proposal to issue fixed-term spectrum licences to enable Starlink to use E band frequencies for Non-geostationary Orbit (NGSO) gateway earth stations at three sites in the UK. This is to expand backhaul capacity to support satellite broadband services. Ofcom notes that take-up of satellite broadband is rising, […]

May 27, 2025By Colin Mann

AST SpaceMobile’s Ligado deal gets close

AST SpaceMobile’s ambition to acquire Ligado’s space bandwidth over the US is close to finalising. A statement from Ligado said: “We have reached an agreement in principle with all of the parties, so with Inmarsat, with AST, and with our two ad-hoc creditor groups…” The final judicial hearing will be on May 29th (if uncontested) […]

May 27, 2025By Chris Forrester

Starship #9 authorised for launch

The upcoming launch of SpaceX’s giant Starship has been approved by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). The FAA has examined SpaceX’s history on the anomaly which led to the loss of Starship #8 and has now cleared Flight 9 for launch. “The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap […]

May 26, 2025

SES, Helios launch agreement

Tom Mueller, founder and CEO of Impulse Space has won a major ‘multi-launch’ order from satellite operator SES.  Mueller was the first employee at SpaceX and his work on the Merlin rocket engine, still used by SpaceX, was hugely important to SpaceX. He founded Impulse in 2020 having retired from SpaceX. The SES order will […]

May 23, 2025By Chris Forrester