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 […]

Elon Musk was somewhat caught out by talking of significant improvements that had been made to SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket. Then the test rocket, which would have become Flight #10, suffered a spectacular explosion June 19th on its test pad. Experts suggest the damage to the test stand itself possibly looks repairable. There is obviously […]

A supposedly routine static test firing of a SpaceX Starship rocket ended in a gigantic ball of flame in a huge explosion at Elon Musk’s Starbase facility in South Texas. In a statement, SpaceX said the rocket suffered “a major anomaly” while on a test stand at Starbase. “A safety clear area around the site […]

Despite missiles raining down – and perhaps to ensure connectivity – Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite is now active in Iran. On June 13th, Iran’s communications ministry announced that “temporary restrictions have been imposed on the country’s internet” in response to Israel’s wave of attacks on military and nuclear facilities. The ministry […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband by satellite system has received a ‘Letter of Intent’ from India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The official message covers Starlink’s satellite communications services. However, there are many tough limitations being set which might make a deployment a challenge. The move comes after months of regulatory scrutiny by the DoT, which is […]

On April 11th, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, posted “delete all IP law” on the social media platform, now rebranded as X. Current owner Elon Musk swiftly responded to the tweet with: “I agree.” AI companies including OpenAI (which Musk co-founded, competes with, and is challenging in court) are facing numerous lawsuits alleging that they’ve […]

The EU’s Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius says he has no objection to mergers in the satellite and space production sector. Speaking on April 11th at the New Economy Forum’s Europa Forum in Brussels, he said he was in favour or supporting champions, although did not specifically mention the Airbus and Thales Alenia merger […]