Airbus, Thales Alenia and Leonardo, three giants in terms of satellite manufacture, are in “preliminary talks” to merge their operations. Rumours of a potential merger have been reported for some months. The talks would not involve the Airbus aircraft manufacturing business. French newspaper La Tribune reports that the trio are also in discussion with the […]

Satellite giant Intelsat, in the process of being bought by SES, has reported declining revenues across many of its key divisions. Its ‘Transponder Revenues’ vertical, which accounts for video services tumbled 10 per cent, while its In-Flight services division fell back 9 per cent (although 6 per cent when equipment sales were included). Intelsat stated […]

UK comms regulator Ofcom is consulting on proposed updates to its satellite filings procedures, which are the processes for obtaining internationally recognised orbits and frequency assignments for satellites. Before a satellite can use the radio spectrum and orbits it needs, it requires an associated ‘satellite filing’ to obtain international recognition of these resources through the […]

A new European rocket designed to handle small to mid-sized satellites failed on its first ‘demo’ flight from Norway on March 30th. The Spectrum rocket, from Germany-based Isar Aerospace, successfully lifted off from the pad but failed a few seconds later, falling back into the Norwegian bay adjacent to the Andøya Spaceport launch site. A […]

Various reports on a proposed $1.5 billion Italian plan for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites talk of the agreement being ‘cancelled’ or ‘paused’ or ‘stalled’. In its place Eutelsat’s CEO has addressed the dilemma and specifically talking up Eutelsat’s ability to fill the Italian gap. Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke told French parliamentarians that “Starlink ties Italy […]

Spanish satellite builder Sateliot is in the final stages of a Series B financing round tonraise €70 million, and helped by the Spanish government-backed Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT) which is putting €13.8 million into the business. The funds will be invested in a constellation of over 100 satellites – critical infrastructure designed to […]

Declan Ganley, CEO at Rivada Space Networks, told delegates at the recent Satellite 2025 show in Washinton, that in his view the European IRIS2 scheme to build a super-secure satellite constellation is – in effect – “dead in the water”. Ganley was speaking on an expert panel which included Eutelsat’s CEO Eva Berneke. Ganley praised […]

UK media regulator Ofcom has published proposals for enabling MNOs to use their spectrum for direct to device (D2D) services, in partnership with satellite providers. The proposals are open for consultation and it expects responses in by May 20th. That timeframe suggests Ofcom expects to move pretty quickly on this one. “People in the UK […]

One of the main complaints from an SES major shareholder, Appaloosa (which holds 7 per cent of SES) was the company’s poor dividend policy. However, SES used its report to shareholders ahead of its AGM on April 4th to explain in some detail how its dividend policy would evolve, and in some respects answer at […]

SpaceX’s Starlink says it now has more than “1 million active Starlink Roam customers”. This is an impressive number, although with a total claimed recent customer base of 5 million, some might say that the Roaming client base is proportionally high. However, Starlink says it is dedicated to providing an incredible high-speed internet experience for […]