Europe

Arianespace has been chosen by the Slovenian Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies (SPACE-SI) to launch the Next-Generation Earth Monitoring and Observation High-Definition (NEMO-HD) microsatellite on the Vega launch vehicle as part of the Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) Proof of Concept (POC) flight in 2019.

British built VESTA telecommunications satellite will improve safety and security for commercial shipping.

MASMOVIL Group, Spain’s fourth largest telecommunications operator, has signed an agreement with Eutelsat’s subsidiary, Eurobroadband Infrastructure, to distribute broadband services to under-connected areas across the country via the KA-SAT satellite.

SpaceX successfully launched its Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission to low-Earth orbit on Monday, 3 December 2018 at 10:34am PST, from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California using a Falcon 9 satellite launch vehicle.

When talking about GEO versus NGSO systems – predominantly LEO and MEO – one typically ends up in a discussion about latency and how MEO and LEO are capable of offering much lower latencies relative to the traditional GEO satellites. Alternatively one may also end up in an endless debate about satellite pricing and how it will come down by virtue of so much (NGSO) capacity flooding the market, causing many challenges for many satellite operators.

Britain has officially withdrawn from the European Union’s (EU) Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) because of fears that the UK will have no influence over the technological and policy direction of the satellite project after the country leaves the EU early in 2019.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) announced on 26 November 2018 that it is designing a low cost 35 kilogram lunar communications satellite mission called DoT-4, targeted for a 2021 launch.

SpaceWatch.Global is proud to announce that SpaceWatch Europe starts official publication as of 1 December 2018.

Shetland Space Centre (SSC) has joined forces with telecom experts in the neighbouring Faroe Islands, forming a unique international partnership to drive forward space industry developments in the two island groups and beyond.

Skyrora, the Scottish New Space satellite launch company, has moved its corporate headquarters to Princes Street in the heart of Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, under a five year lease.