The Baikonur rocket and missile site in the middle of Kazakhstan is an area of some 90 kms in diameter which is leased to Russia until 2050. At its heart is the spaceport, and central to the spaceport’s modest visitors area is a small museum where the world’s first astronaut Yuri Gagarin lived ahead of […]
Novaspace, the space consulting and market intelligence firm, has released its Space Situational and Domain Awareness Market Intelligence Report. “With the increasing deployment of mega-constellations in lower orbits, critical failures and collision events are becoming a matter of when rather than if,” said Alessandro Cattaneo, Consultant at Novaspace and lead author of its newly released […]
SpinLaunch has won an order to launch an initial 280 small satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). The scheme is called Meridian Space and is backed by Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace and valued at €122.5 million. SpinLaunch, headquartered in Long Beach, California, but launches using its own technology from a site in the Mojave Desert. […]
XGen Network (XGN), a specialist in 5G Broadcast solutions, announced at the LPTV Broadcasters Association’s conference the development of its LPTV Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) leveraging 5G Broadcast technology. Scheduled for testing by Q3 2025, BPS aims to enhance broadcasting capabilities and introduce a wide array of applications. XGN’s initiative builds upon the 3GPP standards, […]
Consolidation is running through the satellite industry. A year ago it was Eutelsat absorbing OneWeb, Viasat buying Inmarsat and more recently SES making a $3.1 billion (€2.8bn) commitment to acquire rival Intelsat. The SES/Intelsat move is expected to wrap this summer. Consolidation is also affecting smaller satellite businesses. April 1st saw Canada-based MDA announce its […]
The United Launch Alliance (ULA), which is the joint-venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is readying its first rocket launch for the Jeff Bezos-backed Project Kuiper broadband-by-satellite mega-constellation. ULA will loft the first 27 Kuiper satellites, probably on April 9th subject to the usual weather and technical considerations. Amazon confirmed on April 2nd that it […]
Despite the rise of digital media, television remains the dominant media source for Italians, reaching 94. per cent of the population in 2024, according to the annual Censis report on the state of Italian media. Interestingly, satellite television viewership, both free-to-air and subscription-based, is experiencing significant growth, now reaching 47.7 per cent of users, an […]
While the planet now has global low Earth orbiting coverage from Elon Musk’s Starlink, China is quietly getting on with its own rival scheme, in the shape of its Qianfan (Thousand Sails) satellite constellation project. Genesat (Gesi Aerospace), the project’s main contractor, has signed a contract for the second phase of its satellite manufacturing plant […]
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 […]
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 […]