SES, Eutelsat and Intelsat have been beaten in a bidding process organised by Brazil’s National Telecoms Agency for three satellite orbital slots that serve the region. The bids were won by Hughes Communications (owned by EchoStar) and StarOne, a satellite operator controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. The bids earned $159 million for Brazil. Hughes/EchoStar […]
Arianespace has decided to undertake a few extra tests on the giant Ariane-5 rocket’s upper stage engine. This will take “a few days” says Arianespace, but create an inevitable delay to the launch of Arabsat 5C and SES-2, originally scheduled for September 9th. For the upcoming flight, Arabsat-5C is the mission’s larger payload, with an […]
On August 18th a giant Russian Proton rocket failed to correctly launch an Express-AM4 satellite, placing the craft in a near-useless orbit, and with a probable $300 million insurance claim. An investigation board was immediately set up and has now reported back with its findings. The examination says that the fault came from a badly […]
Sky Italia has launched Sky Go, a service which allows streaming of sports, football, news and entertainment on the iPad and the iPad2. The service, which represents Sky Italia’s first attempt to provide content on alternative platforms and emerging portable devices, will be extended to Android tablets in the coming weeks. With Sky Go and […]
India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has issued an RFP to foreign satellite operators requesting extra transponder capacity in Ku and C-band transmission bands. There is a serious shortage of such capacity, including space for HDTV channels, but foreign operators are limited by India’s own licensing restrictions. There is a considerable waiting list of broadcasters looking […]
Telesat of Canada launched its Telstar 14R/Estrela do Sol 2 satellite on May 21st. While the launch appeared successful one of the satellite’s solar panels failed to open. The craft, built by Space Systems/Loral has been given a very limited life in orbit, and can only handle about half of its planned channels. The satellite […]
Iran has launched ‘Hispan TV’, a global satellite news channel that is initially beaming its content to Latin America and in particular to Venezuela and the other Latino countries some of which have close political ties with Iran. BBC Monitoring is reporting that Hispan TV is part of the state-funded Press TV operation which […]
Russia’s important Express-AM4 satellite has seemingly been found. There’s also a full investigation into what went wrong with the launch. International Launch Services (ILS), which markets the Proton rocket-launch system to international customers, says that the Proton-M rocket “operated nominally” which is a coded phrase for everything going according to plan. It was the Briz-M […]
BBC Monitoring is reporting that the president of Turkmenistan has ordered that all satellite dishes must be removed from houses and buildings. The president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, has ordered his deputy prime minister in charge of transport and communication issues to remove satellite dishes installed on houses and buildings in capital city Asgabat and other major […]
Vibrant TV is claimed to be a new type of channel. Backed in part by Chicago-based media buying agency Zephyr Media, the FTA channel says it will showcase internationally produced lifestyle, series, sports and kids programming. The channel will be available on satellite and terrestrially. Dan Zifkin, CEO of Zephyr, says the network will launch […]