Region

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.

e-GEOS, a company jointly owned by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Telespazio, has won new contracts in Indonesia and Japan to provide satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence from the COSMO-SkyMed Earth observation satellite constellation for maritime domain awareness and other applications.

Thai New Space company mu Space released on 21 September 2018 a 3D image of the spacesuit that astronauts and mu Space's space tourism clients will one day wear when they travel in space and on the Moon.

Planet, the New Space commercial Earth observation company that operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites, and Orbital Insight, a leading company specialising in geospatial analytics, announced on 19 September 2018 a multi-year contract for Orbital Insight to source daily, global satellite imagery from Planet. The contract is an expansion of their previous imagery-sharing agreement.

The past few years have seen the satellite press column inches dominated by excited talk of new mega constellations. We have learned how thousands of small satellites are going to transform connectivity for billions around the world. I should know, I am one of the people that have been excitedly scribbling about it. But now that the dust has settled on the flurry of news of the constellations that are in the pipeline, where are we now?

Azerbaijan's national space agency, AzerCosmos, will soon start selling satellite imagery taken by its AzerSky Earth observation satellite, as well as imagery taken by the Pléiades-1A and 1B satellites, according to a source in AzerCosmos reported by Azerbaijani news outlet Trend.

Kleos Space, the Luxembourg-based New Space geolocation company that is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), has selected Rocket Lab to launch its first satellites in 2019.

The Philippines is on the verge of creating its own national space agency after a prominent Filipino politician sponsored legislation in the Senate plenary of Senate Bill 1983, or the “Act Establishing the Philippine Space Development and Utilization Policy and Creating the Philippine Space Agency, and for other Purposes,” earlier in September 2018.

The Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company Limited (BCSCL), operator of the recently launched Bangabandhu-1 communications satellite, has selected Thaicom, Thailand's largest commercial satellite communications operator, to help BCSC develop new markets and business for its satellite services.