Region

On 30 March 2018, a meeting of the Ukrainian State Space Agency Collegium was held in the city of Dnipro. During the meeting, the results of the work of enterprises and institutions of the Ukrainian space industry for 2017 were summed up and priority directions of work for the forthcoming period were determined.

Diplomatic efforts are gathering in the Middle East and North Africa toward the development of a regional mechanism for space cooperation and development among Arab countries. At the recent Global Aerospace Summit in Abu Dhabi, the region made progress toward establishing an Arab space organisation.

A political competition to host the headquarters of the new Australian Space Agency has emerged between Australian states, a development that a prominent Australian space policy expert is counterproductive, even pointless, and misunderstands the role and scope of the agency that is due to start operations on 1 July 2018.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted U.S.-Singaporean New Space company Audacy a licence for the first commercial inter-satellite relay network, and the implications of this are transformational for space communications as LEO operators, for the first time, can be in constant contact with their satellites.

South Korean satellite operator KT Sat is now poised to provide near-global maritime and inflight connectivity through its new satellites and expanded teleport, in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market.

On 23rd June 2018, Rocket Lab’s launch window for the ‘It’s Business Time’ mission will open. During this 14-day window, the company will launch its groundbreaking Electron rocket and will transform access to space for the small satellite market.

SES’s Satellite Monitor study suggests that satellites are playing a critical role in bridging the digital divide in Africa, with SES providing 2.7 million Ugandans with satellite television.

The maritime sector of today is more connected than ever before. Vessels of all kinds have effectively become floating offices where the same level of connectivity is in demand at sea as on the shore. Communications on board assist shipping fleet owners, cruise ships and also owners of smaller vessels and yachts to become more operationally efficient and to keep both crew and passengers happy by enabling them to access their mobile devices even whilst away at sea.

DigitalGlobe has released a selection of GBDX NoteBooks that will give different customer groups access to a wealth of valuable information from across the company’s Geospatial Big Data platform (GBDX) and is also offering a selection of tutorials on how to use them.

The launch of the Chinese meteorological satellite, Fengyun-2H, marks another step in the Chinese-led Space Silk Road, as Beijing dedicates the system to providing weather coverage along Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) territories.