Asia Pacific

The Satellite Applications Catapult and Infostellar have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to provide UK businesses with enhanced access to the Satellite Applications Catapult’s ground station in Goonhilly, Cornwall.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will deliver five ground stations and a total of 500 Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT) to enable its neighbours to benefit from satellite-based services such as TV, Internet, telephone, disaster management, and telemedicine.

Hughes Communications India has been selected to provide a high-performance satellite broadband system for India's Naval Communication Network (NCN).

The Indian government is considering building a constellation of communications satellite is low-Earth and Medium-Earth orbits (LEO and MEO) in order to provide improved connectivity across the country with reduced latency, as the South Asian country seeks to be the latest entity to build a large constellation of satellites, albeit the first to do so as a government programme.

Danish CubeSat manufacturer has apparently slow-rolled manufacturing of 200 Pearl CubeSats for the Australian Stock Exchange-listed New Space company Sky and Space Global after two payments thought to be worth U.S.$2.3 million have been missed, according to a report in Space News.

Human space exploration has received another significant boost with the successful landing of a Chinese probe on the far side of the moon – a feat that has never before been accomplished. Chinese state media confirmed that the spacecraft had performed a ‘soft landing’ at 10.26am (2.26am GMT) on January 2. The confirmation came after an earlier tweet was deleted from China Daily and various other sources, proclaiming the mission a success.

China's first private satellite launch vehicle production facility has begun operations in the city of Huzhou, located in east China's Zhejiang Province, according to the privately-owned and Beijing-based launch vehicle manufacturer LandSpace.

The Indian government is likely to introduce the 2017 Space Activities Bill, which will allow the commercial use of space in India, in the 2019 budget session, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.

The Indian government announced on 28 December 2018 that its Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission expected to take place in 2022 will consist of three crew members, last for five to seven days in orbit, and is budgeted for the equivalent of U.S.$1.43 billion, according to Indian media reports.

China has announced the completion of its BeiDou global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and the start of worldwide service on 27 December 2018, marking a victory for Beijing's "Made in China 2025" strategy that promotes strategically autonomous high technologies such as autonomous driving, satellite technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and 5G networks, among others.