On December 23, shortly before the holidays, I received a press release that headlined: “European space and digital players to study build of EU’s satellite-based connectivity system.” As part of this 7 million euro ($8.5 million) deal, the European Commission is asking Airbus, Arianespace, Eutelsat, Hispasat, OHB, Orange, SES, Telespazio, and Thales Alenia Space to…

It is not easy to build a successful Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Aside from the technical and regulatory challenges, there are many business and financing issues as well. These issues have already caused LeoSat to fold, sent OneWeb into Chapter 11 and kept Telesat in announcement mode for over three years now. Let’s dig…

The satellite industry is sometimes difficult to understand. OneWeb recently filed for bankruptcy, letting go of most of its staff, but not long after filed for an expansion of their fleet to 48,000 satellites. In 2015, OneWeb announced that its constellation would comprise 1,600 satellites, but later brought that total number of spacecraft down to…