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For Europe’s space industry, New Space + U.S. government is a direct challenge
PARIS — Europe’s space industry association has concluded that the U.S. government’s new space policy poses a direct challenge to Europe’s “competitiveness and freedom to act in space” and must be countered by European governments. ASD-Eurospace is specifically concerned that one or more global...
Media companies confident on satellites’ long-term role but suspicious of U.S. C-Band Coalition
PARIS — Television broadcast service providers reassured the satellite sector that satellites were not about to be replaced by OTT or fiber alternatives, but they warned that the economics of satellite transmission in the United States might change if satellite operators sell C-band capacity to...
ITU says Ka-band works fine, even in tropics; Eutelsat warns of ITU Ka-band spectrum grab
PARIS — The use of Ka-band broadband satellites to deliver internet is substantially less affected by rain-fade than previous modeling suggested, removing an issue that has long been used to question the move from C- and Ku-band to higher frequencies, an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)...
DARPA, ex-USAF and private-sector officials say Space Force is an obviously good idea
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Current and former U.S. military space officials and one commercial military space contractor said creating a separate U.S. Space Force is as logical as companies creating IT departments — or the U.S. Air Force’s creation after World War II. Aggregating the...
U.S. military wants to capture New Space/constellation satellite wave. Can it?
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is about to move under U.S. Air Force Space Command jurisdiction, may be ready for a long-argued reform that would scrap the use of contract price as the prime selection criterion, the agency’s satcom division...
Mega-constellations of satellites seen as a difficult sell to debt markets
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — OneWeb’s difficulty in closing its debt financing is indicative of the problems that other multibillion-dollar mega-constellations of satellites will have unless they can show solid customer commitments, financial analysts said. While not mentioning OneWeb by name,...
LeoSat: We expect Sky Perfect JSat and Hispasat to invest $300 million each
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Startup corporate and government satellite broadband provider LeoSat expects its two strategic partners — GEO fleet operators Sky Perfect JSat and Hispasat — to invest some $300 million each into the project over time, LeoSat Chief Executive Mark Rigolle said. LeoSat...
Telesat Canada: We’ll self-finance a big share of our LEO broadband project
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Telesat expects to finance a large piece of its multibillion-dollar Telesat LEO constellation from its own operating cash flows supplemented by export-credit-agency-backed loans and government investment, a company official said. Telesat’s constellation of low-orbiting...
Customer Spire to launch providers: Price is secondary, cool hardware is beside the point
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — One of the biggest builder/operators of cubesats on Oct. 9 told launch-launch-service providers that customers don’t care about their cool engineering, and that even low prices are not as crucial as they might seem. Jenny Barna, launch director at Spire Global, said...
Small-satellite launch provider Firefly Aerospace: On track for December qual test
UPDATE Oct 10: Firefly and York Space Systems said York announce MoU on future launch systems. Firefly’s Alpha rocket could accommodate up to four of York’s S-Class platform, 3-axis-stabiliized, up to 85 kg of payload, 100W average power. PARIS — The next 18 months are “Prove It” time...
With Ka-band satellite finally imminent, Russia’s Gazprom Space Systems looks at strategy
AMSTERDAM — JSC Gazprom Space Systems’s much-delayed C- and Ka-band Yamal-601 satellite now expected for launch in March and will bring Russia’s second satellite fleet operator into the Ka-band broadband world. Gazprom already provides broadband in-flight connectivity in Ku-band to service...
