Life interrupted: The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spread around the world, leaving devastation in its wake and the way we lived and worked. In these extraordinary times, everything seemingly flipped upside down and uncertainty became the singular lens with which to view a volatile landscape. Surprisingly, amid the pandemonium, some stability existed. COVID interrupted the bandwidth…

Over the last decade, Turkey has invested in its spacefaring ambitions, resulting in the strengthening of its indigenous space-related know-how and its position within the global arena. In 2011 and 2012, RASAT and Göktürk 2 were launched respectively, placing the two Earth Observation (EO) satellites designed and developed in Turkey into orbit. With the capacity…

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life” … for satellite. Over the last five or so years, there has been a downward trend of satellite capacity pricing. This was largely fueled by the proliferation of more powerful High Throughput Satellites (HTS), a technological advent that has buoyed hopes of satellite…

The United Arab Emirates took an accelerated approach to enter the satellite and space industry and position itself as a contender. The Gulf nation launched its first mobile telecommunications satellite, Thuraya-1, in 2000; established the UAE Space Agency (UAESA) in 2014; and has already put its first astronaut in space. Presently, with 10 birds in…