Eutelsat Communications has announced the successful mating of the platform and payload of the KONNECT satellite, conducted at Thales Alenia Space’s facilities in Cannes. This operation is a major step in the construction of the satellite, in preparation for its launch by the end of this year. KONNECT is a next-generation High Throughput satellite offering […]
Arianespace says that it will launch the next batch of SES-backed O3b satellites on March 29th. The company will use the Russian Soyuz rocket for the task, and the mission is to carry four O3b satellites into orbit. The new date is a few days later than originally expected. Arianespace’s CEO Stephane Israel said “Soyuz […]
OneWeb, with help from Arianespace and a Russian Soyuz rocket, lifted six of its satellites from French Guiana on February 27th (at 18.37 local time, 21.37 GMT), and thus began the first step of a work-load that will eventually see 648 active satellites in orbit. Greg Wyler, founder of OneWeb’s plan is simple: to circle […]
The SES end of year ‘report card’ is in, and in general the results went down well with the market. As investment bank Jefferies’ Giles Thorne was typical and said in a note to clients that SES had a strong finish to the year. “SES outperformed 4Q/2018 expectations (+4.4 per cent ahead on revenue, +1.1 […]
Russian businesses have reportedly bought a majority share of the OneWeb satellite mega-constellation that will operate over Russia via a Russian joint venture. This means, in essence, that OneWeb should now be able to gain access to Russian consumers, the president of a joint-venture partner said. Dmitry Bakanov, DG of JSC Satellite System Gonets, said […]
Satellite communications innovator and space gateway Goonhilly Earth Station has signed a partnership agreement with the Australian Space Agency to collaborate and create new opportunities in the space economy in Australia, the UK and beyond. The new statement of strategic intent and cooperation aims to help progress the Australian space sector and make the benefits […]
Facebook is investing in California-based Viasat to help with the roll-out of satellite bandwidth for broadband demand. The first step is helping remote connectivity over Mexico. Importantly, there will be an opportunity to expand the project globally, according to a statement issued by the companies. As of last month, the service was available to 1 […]
Arianespace will conduct its ‘launch readiness review’ on Monday, February 25th, for the six OneWeb satellites currently in its care. Arianespace will use its Soyuz medium-powered rocket from Kourou for the delivery into a circular low Earth orbit at 1,000 km (very close to their target operational orbit). Launch date is likely to be February […]
Eutelsat held a meeting and presentation in London on February 18th as part of their ‘road show’ series of post-result discussions. The meeting generated a more positive outlook for the satellite operator, and perhaps needed given that Eutelsat’s organic revenue decline was the worst for the past 10 quarter-year financial statements. Sami Kassab, an equity […]
Affordable worldwide Internet coverage is one step closer today, after £18 million (€20.55m) of UK Space Agency funding was awarded to OneWeb through the European Space Agency, to aid the development of its next generation satellite constellation. A global communications network in space, the system will be comprised of approximately 650 satellites initially and scale […]