News

After the Israeli government’s decision to subsidize Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to build the AMOS-8 communications satellite, Spacecom has informed U.S. satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL) that it is cancelling its March 2018 contract for them to build the satellite.

Azercosmos, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan, and Intelsat, one of the largest commercial satellite communications operators in the world, announced on 26 September 2018 the successful launch of the Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38 communications satellite aboard an Arianespace Ariane-5 launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

Astrome, an Indian New Space satellite broadband company headquartered in Bengaluru (also known as Bangalore), is planning to launch 150 High-Throughput Satellites (HTS) starting in 2019 in order to bring high-speed broadband Internet to remote and rural areas on the Indian subcontinent and so bridge the Digital Divide in the world's most populous country.

The UAE Space Agency is partnering with Krypto Labs - an innovation hub and startup incubator in Abu Dhabi - to identify three Emirati space and satellite startups and then scale their ideas into commercially viable products.

Yahsat, the leading satellite communications provider in the UAE, announced on 24 September 2018 the launch of its satellite broadband service, YahClick, in the West African country of Côte d'Ivoire in order to increase Internet access where only 27 percent of the population is online.

China's Institute of Aerospace Information Research has helped ten countries install virtual ground stations in order to receive remote sensing data, it was announced last week.

Earlier this month, the Royal Air Force (RAF) took part in the gruelling Himalayan Venture 18, the principal expedition of RAF100 –the celebration of the centenary of the formation of the Royal Air Force, the first independent Air Force in the world. Uniting 75 members of the wider RAF family, the pioneering expedition took teams to the Rolwaling and Khumbu regions of the Nepalese Himalayan range.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the Indian state-run telecommunications company, is partnering with Japan’s Softbank and NTT Communications to provide 5G networks and Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity across India, including through Softbank’s OneWeb satellite constellation that is currently under construction.

Arianespace is preparing its sixth launch of 2018 as it plans to orbit Azerbaijan's Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38 telecommunications satellite on board an Ariane-5 launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Center (CSG) in South America. The launch, planned for 25 September 2018, also includes the Horizons-3e communications satellite for Intelsat and its partner SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation.

The governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are considering the joint construction and operation of a communications satellite, and are also looking at proposing a Central Asian Earth observation satellite constellation consisting of five satellites.