E-letter: Briefs

Northrop Grumman will design, develop, and produce 24 ship sets of solar arrays for Airbus‘ new OneSat Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) satellite product line under the terms of a new contract […]

Chris Johnson, president of Boeing Satellite Systems International, is moving to Maxar Technologies, to lead the company’s Space Programs Delivery (SPD) division. Maxar announced April 29 that it has appointed […]

Viasat has completed its purchase of Eutelsat’s share of Euro Broadband Infrastructure (EBI), the wholesale broadband services business, the company announced April 30. This purchase gives Viasat complete ownership of […]

President Biden’s pick for NASA administrator — former Florida Senator Bill Nelson — was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on April 29.  Nelson becomes NASA’s 14th administrator, succeeding former Republican […]

L3Harris Technologies Communication Systems division continues to benefit from U.S. Department of Defense orders to modernize its tactical communications capabilities. The increase in military business drove a 2.9% year-over-year increase in […]

Arianespace’s Vega rocket returned to flight on Wednesday evening, launching a next-generation Earth Observation (EO) Pléiades Neo satellite for Airbus, along with five rideshare small satellites. The launch from French Guiana […]

Hispasat has made a significant move in the Latin America media market, one of its key target territories. The company announced April 29 that it has struck a deal to […]

Northrop Grumman’s Space segment saw sales increase 29% in the first quarter of 2021, the company reported Thursday. Sales were $2.5 billion in Q1 of 2021, up from $1.9 billion […]

Brazil is one step closer to finally achieving domestic orbital-class launch capabilities. On Wednesday, the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) and Brazilian Air Force signed a contract with Virgin Orbit to […]

York Space Systems is adding a larger and more powerful platform called the LX-Class to its family of spacecraft platforms.  The new platform is built off of the York S-Class, […]

German rocket developer Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has signed a launch contracts with OHB Cosmos and LuxSpace, for dedicated missions between mid-2024 and 2025.  The deals, announced Tuesday, are for […]

Boeing‘s Defense, Space & Security division reported $7.2 billion in revenue in its first quarter 2021 (Q1) financial results, reflecting a 19% jump from the same period in 2020. The […]

Inmarsat and Honeywell are teaming up to deliver a new set of solutions to the U.S. government, the two companies announced April 27. The solutions will be focused on fixed-wing […]

ST Engineering iDirect will extend the ground infrastructure of a 3G, 4G, and corporate internet services network in Brazil under the terms of a new contract with a Tier 1 […]

The FCC has granted SpaceX permission to lower the altitude of future satellites in the Starlink Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. The FCC’s decision, announced Tuesday, came despite protests from Viasat, […]

SES has renewed a broadcast capacity deal in Germany. The company announced April 27 that Bayerische Medien Technik GmbH (bmt) has signed a multi-year agreement to continue using SES’s satellites […]

Rocket Lab has won a contract to build a Mission Operations Control Center (MOCC) in Auckland, New Zealand for MethaneSAT. The contract was issued under a $26 million (NZD) New […]

Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. has recently signed two deals with telecommunications companies for its SkyEdge II-c Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) network platform. On Monday, Gilat announced a $3 million […]

OneWeb has seen another 36 satellites successfully launched as it looks to build up its Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. Arianespace and launch partner Glavkosmos launched the satellites from the Vostochny […]

Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) is expanding its offerings with four new polar antennas, the company announced Monday. The first is a new 7.3 m tri-band antenna at the Inuvik Satellite […]

Spaceflight Inc. will provide launch and integration services for OQ Technology‘s first batch of six 5G Internet of Things (IoT) satellites under the terms of a new contract announced April […]

Japanese space startup Warpspace has closed a 400 million yen ($3.6 million) Series A funding round to commercialize its plans for an inter-satellite optical communication relay network service. This funding […]

This time last year, the U.S. had not launched astronauts from American soil in nearly a decade, but with SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission, these missions are now happening regularly. SpaceX launched […]

On Earth Day, Inmarsat announced a deal with the European Space Agency (ESA) to help in the area of national disasters. The satellite operator, alongside SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest […]

Commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) mapping and space situational awareness services provider LeoLabs has commenced full operations at its Space Radar facility in Costa Rica. The company broke ground on the […]

Isar Aerospace had signed a deal for launch services with Airbus Defence and Space, the companies announced April 22. The deal sees Airbus Defence and Space commit to one launch, […]

Northrop Grumman will proceed with its Protected Tactical Satcom (PTS) rapid prototype program for the U.S. Space Force, with a flight demonstration set for 2024.  The program involves the space […]

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is bringing Viasat connectivity to part of its fleet for European routes. This year, KLM is outfitting 181 of its Boeing 737-800 fleet with Viasat In-Flight […]

Defense and security company QinetiQ and geospatial analytics firm HyperSat selected Virgin Orbit to launch a series of six hyperspectral satellites to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) on its LauncherOne system. Virgin […]

Airbus has completed the Final Design Review of its OneSat satellite line with customers and space agencies, the company announced on Wednesday. This was done with development support from European […]