Middle East

Paris, 12 May 2021. – Scorpio Shipmanagement equips its entire tanker and bulker fleet and connects its vessels with Marlink’s hybrid VSAT network solution, the company based in Oslo and Monaco said. The service extension will provide Scorpio with higher bandwidth services to meet an increasing level of business need for higher data rates and usage volumes.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 26th episode in our podcast series The Space Cafe Podcast: Torsten Kriening - Mastermind behind one of the fastest growing space industry news outlets. Episode 026 features a special guest Torsten Kriening. Torsten Kriening is your point of contact when you need information about whoever you want in the space industry.

In this week’s Space Café UAE  Sahith Reddy Madara, UAE’s National Point of Contact for the Space Generation Advisory Council talked about the Future of Aerospace Engineering. This Space Café UAE, held on 19 April 2021, was hosted by Abdulla A. Wasel, Managing Associate of Wasel & Wasel,

Since the early years of the last decade, the new space industry boomed, utilizing the rideshare (or hitchhiking - no towel needed) opportunities to reach orbit on almost all major launch vehicles. Dnepr, Soyuz, Vega, Long March, Electron, Falcon-9, LauncherOne, and many more all offer opportunities for small satellites. In fact, the industry is so thriving that two niche industries followed.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has signed a contract with Japan’s ispace, inc., under which the latter will provide payload delivery services for the ambitious Emirates Lunar Mission. Under this agreement, ispace becomes a key strategic and implementation partner to MBRSC on the Emirates Lunar Mission, the first of its kind from the Arab world.

Paris, 13 April 2021. – The Norwegian network provider Marlink Group can close the acquisition of ITC Global, the company said. Backed by Apax Partners, Marlink obtained final regulatory approvals to acquire 100% of ITC Global from Panasonic, the group said. Marlink and ITC Global are preparing for a swift closing of the transaction in the coming weeks, the company said.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) named its first female astronaut, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said. “Today we announce two new Emirati astronauts, among them the first female Arab astronaut. We congratulate them and count on them to raise the name of the UAE ever higher in space.”

OQ selects NanoAvionics for MACSAT mission

March had another three announcements of mergers between space companies and SPACs, for a total of over US$1.5 billion of gross proceeds (we consider cash in trust plus PIPE, assuming no redemptions and before fees). It is probably widely expected that there will be further space-SPAC transactions and we at SPAC(e)watch.global will keep track of these!

The UAE-based global satellite operator, Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) has seen immense strides in both technology and opportunity over the last year.  In the face of a pandemic and unpredictable space market, Yahsat prevailed with ingenuity and strategic partnerships that are enabling the company to quickly emerge as a leader in the industry and a principal stakeholder and contributor to the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) transformation as a space economy.