Investment bank Morgan Stanley says that its base case valuation for Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite low Earth orbiting constellation stands at $81 billion (€71.8bn). It backs up its thinking with assumptions of a longer-term 2040 position when the system can offer some 250 Gb/s per satellite of capacity of which 4.5 per cent is “saleable” […]
SpaceX successfully placed 48 of its Starlink broadband satellites into orbit on the evening of December 2nd, plus two paying satellites for client BlackSky, who is using its satellites for Earth observation tasks. A few minutes after launch the Falcon 9’s rocket booster was successfully recovered on its floating drone barge in the Atlantic. The […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team postponed the planned December 1st launch of another batch of Starlink satellites for 24-hours until around 6pm (Florida time) on December 2nd. However, Musk was again Tweeting over his concerns about raising more capital and the potential risk of failure. “If a severe global recession were to dry up capital availability […]
Elon Musk has admitted in a memo to staff that problems with his massive Starship places SpaceX into a “genuine risk of bankruptcy”. SpaceX has let go a number of senior executives and adding that development work on the crucial Raptor engines has created a “disaster” for the company. “The Raptor production crisis is much […]
Barely two weeks since the last Starlink launch (on November 12th) a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to place another (approximately) 53 of its broadband-by-satellite craft into orbit on December 1st. With the usual caution of bad weather the launch will take place from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 18.20 pm Florida […]
India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service is not licensed by India and the public should not subscribe to services. Local media says that Starlink Internet Services are already being advertised in the country. The DoT has also asked Starlink to comply with India’s regulatory framework for offering satellite-based […]
Quilty Analytics, in its latest quarterly ‘state of the industry’ report, quotes recognised satellite business leaders expressing their concerns on the risks to commercial space – and specifically LEO – and the launching of potentially tens of thousands of satellites. Quilty references three leading executives (Viasat’s Mark Dankberg, SES’s Steve Collar, and Steve Spengler, the […]
Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite system is running behind on supplying systems to potential subscribers. Starlink, on November 23rd, sent an apologetic email to clients still waiting for their satellite equipment. The email said more than 14 million people had enquired about a Starlink system and it was now available in more than 20 countries and […]
India’s telecom regulator TRAI is inviting comments and ideas as to how the nation can set up new satellite gateways and Earth stations which are needed to cope with rising demand for satellite-based connectivity. TRAI, working to a brief from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) earlier in September, is to supply recommendations covering the licencing […]
SpaceX executed another flawless launch – and 1st stage landing – on November 13th, albeit delayed by 24 hours because of poor weather at Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 rocket (its first stage has now been used nine times) carried 53 extra Starlink satellites into space. The 1st stage landing on SpaceX’s ‘Just Read the […]