Asia Pacific

Rocket Lab, a commercial space launch company, successfully completed its 10th launch on 6 December 2019 from its launch complex in New Zealand, placing seven small satellites in orbit as well as returning its Electron booster back to Earth.

The team from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have completed the development of their first satellite under the KiboCUBE programme run by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

As it readies for its first satellite launch next week, Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) announced on 6 December 2019 that it has closed credit facilities totalling U.S.$160 million with a group of financial institutions including the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and GuarantCo.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Blaine Curcio, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and briefs. This is ‘Satellites for Nations: The Dawn of a New Era - The Key to New Markets?’, originally published at WestEastSpace.com on 24 November 2019.

On India’s independence day, 15th August 2018, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi announced that by 2022, “some of our young boys and girls will unfurl the Tricolour in space”.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $50 million financing package on 2 December 2019 with Kacific Broadband Satellites International Limited (Kacific) to provide satellite-based, low cost, high-speed, wholesale broadband internet connections to countries in Asia and the Pacific, especially in remote areas of small island nations in the Pacific, and larger island nations like Indonesia and the Philippines.

On 3 December 2019 the Australian Space Agency (ASA) signed with French aerospace giant Thales Group an agreement to develop Australian space capabilities.

Kacific has selected Tata Communications, a leading global digital infrastructure provider, to provide terrestrial connectivity services as it readies for the launch of its first satellite, Kacific1.

The Australian Space Agency has signed a Statement of Strategic Intent and Cooperation with EOS Space Systems, an Australian company specialising in space tracking systems.

The Global Satellite Coalition (GSC), a group of seven trade associations representing the global satellite eco-system, has welcomed the decisions taken at the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), Sharm-el-Sheikh, which allow satellite services to continue to bridge digital, education, health and social divides and connect more and more citizens around the world.