April 17, 2019 – Officials from NASA and the private space company Blue Origin have signed an agreement that grants the company use of a historic test stand as the agency focuses on returning to the Moon and on to Mars, and America’s commercial space industry continues to grow. Under a Commercial Space Launch Act…

April 12, 2019 – International Launch Services (ILS), a U.S.-based global commercial launch services provider, is inaugurating a new era in its 25-plus-year history, and in the life of the historic Proton M launch vehicle, company officials have declared. Cost savings have been achieved through benefits realized from quality improvement initiatives coupled with significantly lower…

April 12, 2019 – On Thursday, April 11 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, Falcon Heavy launched the Arabsat-6A satellite from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite was deployed approximately 34 minutes after liftoff. Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters landed at SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2…

April 10, 2019 – Hughes Network Systems announced it has been awarded a contract from Boeing to develop mission management, system control, networking and ground hub capabilities in support of an anti-jam satellite communications capability for the Air Force’s Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) program. The PTES program will provide tactical warfighters with a joint…

April 9, 2019 – Comtech EF Data Corp., which is part of Comtech’s Commercial Solutions segment, received a significant follow on order from SES Networks for equipment to support its global mobility services. This award is focused on the high-end mobility maritime market with an emphasis on cruise ships, but with the capability of supporting…

April 4, 2019 – The launch took place on Thursday, April 4, at 2:03 pm (local time) from the Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana (South America). This was the fifth O3b mission by Arianespace, which has now orbited all 20 satellites in the first phase of this medium Earth orbit (MEO)…

April 2, 2019 – SES strengthens its position as the world’s leading video distributor via satellite as the number of TV households it serves increased by more than 4 million to over 355 million in 2018. The results from the SES’s annual market research highlighted further growth in SES’s technical reach and underlined the important…

April 2, 2019 – Telesat announced that PT iForte Solusi Infotek (iForte), a leading provider of USO (Universal Service Obligation) VSAT services in Indonesia, has signed major contracts for Ku-band HTS and C-band capacity on Telesat’s new Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite. The contracts result from iForte’s recent selection by Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information…

April 2, 2019 – Viasat announced the introduction of its second-generation Ku-/Ka-band shipset, inclusive of an advanced hybrid antenna and complementary radome. The latest dual-band system, aimed at the commercial wide-body aircraft market, will keep passengers and crew connected across commercial Ku- and Ka-band Geosynchronous and Non-Geosynchronous satellite networks, virtually anywhere they fly around the…

March 28, 2019 – Speedcast International Limited has expanded its Speedcast Media Network™ global infrastructure by integrating satellite, fiber, and cellular networks from Globecomm, the company’s recent acquisition. Speedcast Media Network provides secure point-to-point and point-to-multipoint live and linear digital video delivery anywhere in the world, with low latency and high availability. Speedcast has also…

March 27, 2019 – Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering or the Group) announced that its subsidiary Singapore Technologies Engineering (Europe) Ltd, has entered into a conditional share purchase agreement to acquire a 100% ownership in Newtec Group NV (Newtec) (the “Proposed Acquisition”), an established Belgium-based company in the satellite communications (satcom) industry. The consideration…

March 22, 2019 – Comtech Telecommunications’ Space & Component Technology division, which is part of Comtech’s Government Solutions segment, has introduced an exciting line of transportable, full motion antennas for tracking Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites and High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS). The Micro Deployable X/Y Tracking Antennas utilize the same…

March 22, 2019 – Hughes Network Systems and PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN), the oldest private telecommunication and information service provider in Indonesia, have announced the deployment of their 2,000th Community Wi-Fi Hotspot in the country. With an average of 500 people having access to each hotspot, Hughes and PSN now enable Internet access for…

March 20, 2019 – Thales Alenia Space has announced that the shell for Bishop airlock module is ready for ship to the NanoRacks integration facility in Houston, Texas. The NanoRacks airlock module – dubbed “Bishop” – is the first-ever commercial airlock that will operate on the International Space Station. Owned and operated by NanoRacks, Bishop…

March 19, 2019 – OneWeb is the developer of a new global, high-speed, low latency satellite-based network designed to address the most demanding global connectivity challenges worldwide. Ariane 6 will be available to OneWeb from the second half of 2020 to provide launch capacity that supports the full deployment and replenishment of the OneWeb constellation.…

March 18, 2019 – OneWeb has secured its largest fundraising round to date with the successful raise of $1.25 billion in new capital. This brings the total funds raised to $3.4 billion. This round was led by SoftBank Group Corp., Grupo Salinas, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., and the Government of Rwanda. The new funds, following the…

March 14, 2019 – Lockheed Martin has developed a new LTE-over-Satellite system designed to provide connectivity to remote regions, including areas without cellphone coverage, boats off-shore, or during natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, catastrophic floods or volcanoes. New hotspots connect existing phones to satellites for reliable 4G connections. Typically, during an emergency that knocks…

March 13, 2019 – With a Long March-3B rocket putting a new communications satellite into orbit on March 10, China’s Long March carrier rocket series completed 300 launches, having sent more than 500 spacecraft into space since 1970. The Long March carrier rocket series, developed by CASC, is responsible for about 96.4 percent of all…