Analysts at Quilty Space say they estimate the satellite direct-to-device (DTD) market holds the promise of burgeoning into a multibillion-dollar industry. “It comes as no surprise that in the race to equip unmodified smartphones with satellite connectivity, various players are jockeying for position. Who crosses the finish line first, or even who stays in the […]

A report from the Eurospace Observatory says there are now more than 1000 ‘newspace’ companies actively involved in the space and space-related industries. These numbers do not include so-called downstream sectors. Moreover, the data shows that the total fresh funding raised by these 1,000 exceeds $48 billion (€44.5bn). Broken down, the data reveals that US […]

Sky is preparing for a significant round of job cuts across the UK as part of a strategic shift from DTH distribution to OTT. Sky has already informed many of the staff who will be affected by the restructuring plans, according to the FT, who reports that the exact number of job losses will depend […]

Cairo-based satellite operator Nilesat has reported a 2.8 per cent Q1 rise in its net profit in the three months to March 31st 2023. First-quarter net profit rose to $7.47 million (€6.9m), from $7.27 million in the same period in 2022, although this was down on the 2021 Q1 period when net income was stated […]

Avanti Communications has completed the second phase of its project to build a new HYLAS 4 satellite gateway station in Dakar, Senegal. The new Ka-band antenna, which is 9.2m in diameter, stands 14m and weighs 17,000kg,  has taken over 12 months to build in a facility in the US, before being shipped to Dakar. The […]

Satellite Vu, the UK climate tech company, has announced their Series A2 of £12.7 million (€14.6m) bringing their total investment to £30.5 million in Venture Capital funding to accelerate its mission to provide sustainable solutions to global issues. The A2 round was led by Molten Ventures, with participation from Seraphim Space Investment Trust PLC, A/O Proptech, Lockheed […]

Once upon a time there was Sea Launch, a US/Norway/Russia/Ukraine consortium that used a converted oil-rig plus a support ship, to equatorially launch rockets and their satellites from the sea and using Zenit rockets. Sea Launch operated from 1999 to 2014 and successfully launched 32 rockets, although suffered a total of three complete failures and […]

Thuraya, the mobility arm of the UAE’s flagship satellite solutions provider, Yahsat and eSAT Global have announced that they have successfully completed an over-the-air demonstration of low-latency, direct-to-satellite IoT texting system by transmitting low-power IoT messages over Thuraya’s satellite network (Thuraya-2 Satellite ‘T2’). This milestone is the first of several milestones that Yahsat expects to […]

A super-sophisticated second-generation satellite, dubbed ‘JoeySat’, has been added to the OneWeb constellation of broadband satellites. The new craft was launched along with 15 other conventional back-up satellites on May 20th and completes the initial plan for the fleet. JoeySat is an advanced ‘beam-hopping’ craft developed with £52 million of funding from the UK Space […]

Despite being just days away from receiving the final approval for its planned merger with Viasat, London-based Inmarsat has ordered up three new satellites. The new craft measure just 1.5 cubic metres (plus the solar arrays) and are about one-fifth of the size and weight of conventional geostationary satellites. They will form Inmarsat’s I-8 fleet. […]