Airbus Defense and Space Inc. has been awarded a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a satellite bus in support of the Blackjack program. DARPA describes the Blackjack program as an architecture demonstration intending to show the military utility of global low-earth orbit constellations and …

Kleos Space S.A. reports that the company’s first cluster of satellites has entered the Integration Phase after successfully undergoing Critical Design Review (CDR) with Gomspace A/S. The CDR ensured the satellites could proceed towards assembly, validation, integration and testing and confirms they meet stated performance cost, schedule, and risk requirements. …

Roscosmos head, Dmitry Rogozin has announced that Russia will construct Sovereign’s Eye (‘Gosudarevo Oko’), a new constellation of remote sensing satellites that will enable them to identify any changes that are happening on Earth. Rogozin highlighted that the new initiative will enable Russian to strengthen its Digital Economy programme, which …

Sky and Space Global Ltd. (SAS), the Australian Stock Exchange-listed narrowband satellite communications company, announced on 21 January 2019 that it has signed a Reseller Memorandum of Understanding with Global Telesat SL and a Trial Service Agreement with Telespazio Brasil S/A. Global Telesat is a global communications company based in …

On 17 January 2019 the Centre national d’etudes spatiales (CNES) was selected as business provider for the French Tech Seed investment fund. The winners of the Call for Interest, launched by Bpifrance, were announced by Frédérique Vidal, France’s Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Secretary of State …

Inmarsat, the world leader in global mobile satellite communications, announced today that its award-winning GX Aviation inflight broadband solution is now available to passengers onboard Indonesian low-cost airline Citilink’s first aircraft. The milestone was achieved only six months after Inmarsat signed a contract with Mahata Aero Teknologi (MAT), an Indonesia …

The Japanese government is to begin use of a quasi-zenith satellite system to provide a failover solution for support of its Self Defence Force (SDF) in the event of a malfunction on the U.S. GPS system. This move comes amid fears that China and Russia and their development of anti-satellite …

In a Washington, DC, speech, Japanese Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya outlines his country’s new National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) and Mid-Term Defense Plan (MTDP) that included new Japanese positions on national security space that require close cooperation with its American ally. Minister Iwaya’s speech covered a broad range of defence …

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) views space warfare as an important component of its concept of war, and is developing a range of capabilities and tactics to carry out space operations, as well as bolstering its organizational and command and control capacity to enable such operations, according to the U.S. …

The successful launch of the Vietnamese MicroDragon Earth observation satellite took place on 18 January 2019 from the Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The Earth observation satellite was carried by an Epsilon 4 satellite launch vehicle, which also lofted six Japanese-made satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO). The MicroDragon …