News

The world’s largest, dual-band, commercial communications satellite launched yesterday from the JAXA Tanegashima Space Centre onboard Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 45, Inmarsat said. I-6 F1, the first of two Inmarsat-6 satellites, aims to enhance connectivity services for mobility, government and IoT customers.

Maxar Technologies extended its contracts with three long-standing international defense and intelligence customers. The agreements total more than $100 million and extend these customers’ ability to download satellite imagery from Maxar’s current constellation and under its Direct Access Program, the provider of geospatial intelligence said.

Swiss start-up Dotphoton and ESA have signed their second contract and will continue the development of a metrologically correct image compression technology for space applications, Dotphoton announced. The aim of the new contract is to further develop, test and apply Dotphoton's quantum-inspired compression technology.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to address the information gap for space-related climate actions, the United Nations Information Service reported.  Space-based data and applications have long been utilized in climate change monitoring, research, and policy enactment.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 43rd episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast #043: Mike Simmons: Astronomy to the people. Episode 043 features a special guest Mike Simmons. Mike Simmons is a passionate advocate for the power of astronomy to bring people together and change the way we view our fragile home, Earth.

SpaceX launched a new set of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket over the weekend, setting a new reusability record for the vehicle before launching a Turkish communication satellite just 16 hours later. While the 52 satellites were deployed by the rocket’s upper stage, the booster completed its record-breaking 11th flight.

Kacific Broadband Satellites announced that it is migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to upscale its broadband internet services for the rural regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The firm aims to complete the migration of its IT infrastructure and critical business applications by 2022.

The Luxembourg Future Fund (LFF) will be investing in NorthStar Earth & Space, building on the partnership between Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy and the Canadian-based company. NorthStar claims to be the first commercial service aiming at monitoring space via a constellation of satellites.

New year, near chief: The Danish telco and IT manager Eva Berneke is the new CEO of Eutelsat as of 1st January 2022. She succeeds Rodolphe Belmer who was nominated at the helm of the IT group Atos. Eva Berneke joins Eutelsat from KMD, the Danish IT and software company which is now part of the NEC Group.

NASA and the ESA have rescheduled the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for 24th December due to a communication problem between the spacecraft and ground equipment. JWST was placed on top of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket over a week ago as part of launch preparations.