A South African opposition political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is accusing the country’s government of “blocking” Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband service to launch. The DA’s shadow communications minister, Dianne Kohler Barnard, said that the government’s communications regulator’s equity ownership restrictions on telecommunications licences is holding back SpaceX from launching Starlink to South African consumers. […]
SpaceX’s Starship – the largest and most powerful space rocket ever constructed – blew up shortly its after launch in Texas. No one was on board the rocket. After a cancelled launch earlier this week because of a pressurisation issue, the Starship rocket system took off at 8.33am local time. It gathered speed but then […]
Elon Musk’s Starlink is already causing disruption in the satellite communications industry, according to a report from Northern Sky Research (NSR). NSR’s Starlink Feasibility: Business Model and ROI Analysis examines the health of Starlink’s business and assesses the sustainability of its business model. For example, it suggests that Starlink will move firmly into overall RoI […]
The last-minute scrubbed launch of SpaceX’s giant Starship launch has been rescheduled for April 20th. There were more than 500,000 viewers tuned in around the planet to the official SpaceX webcast to watch the non-event, as well as tens of thousands watching on other webcasts, plus millions more viewing on broadcast TV. In relaying its […]
With around ten minutes to go (at 14:15 BST) SpaceX announced its Starship test launch was delayed because of a faulty (possibly frozen) pressure valve. The count continued to T-10 secs to for a ‘wet’ dress rehearsal – so known because the propellant tanks were fully loaded. Elon Musk, speaking during a telecast, had previosuly […]
There are many satellite super-constellations under development. Elon Musk gets plenty of headlines with his SpaceX Starlink system, followed by the Jeff Bezos Kuiper Project, the rapidly growing SES O3b group of satellites and existing orbital services from the likes of Iridium. But there are others, and a report from management consultants McKinsey says that […]
O3b’s latest pair of mPOWER satellites have left their Boeing manufacturing site and have been successfully delivered to the SpaceX launch site in Florida. The two (the third and fourth of the new fleet) will be launched into a medium Earth orbit (MEO) towards the end of April. The current expected date is April 28th, […]
Elon Musk says his giant Starship could make its debut flight during the third week of April. Observers suggest April 20th is a dependable target date, subject to the usual weather and technical considerations. Work at the launch site has been happening for months and intensified over the past 10 days, with Musk saying that […]
April 7th saw SpaceX launch Intelsat’s latest satellite, a high throughput craft dubbed IS-40e, into its geostationary transfer orbit. IS-40e also carried a NASA Earth-observation module. The SpaceX launch used a Falcon 9 booster that had already flown three times previously (“flight proven” in the SpaceX parlance). The booster landed flawlessly on the floating barge […]
SpaceX is again knocking on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) door and has made a fresh request to launch an overall total of 29,988 new satellites. The FCC has already approved 7,500 of the planned 29,988 but SpaceX is now being more specific with its scheme and operational methods. In essence, SpaceX wants to create […]