Satellite

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

Following a string of high-profile incidents, failures, and corruption scandals and allegations, Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, has hit back at its Russian and international critics in a bizarre claim that criticism of the struggling space programme is an "information attack" designed to discredit Roscosmos and its efforts at reforming Russia's moribund space sector.

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) heaviest and most-advanced high throughput communication satellite GSAT-11 was successfully launched from the spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours of 5 December 2018.

NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, has partnered with Eutelsat Communications to launch the world’s first 8K network; BS8K.

Arianespace has successfully orbited two satellites: GSAT-11 for ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), and GEO-KOMPSAT-2A for KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute).

A senior U.S. space official has told SpaceWatch.Global of the Trump administration's concern that Chinese commercial and trade practices are distorting the international commercial space market, and that the U.S. does not envision any form of space cooperation with China as a result.

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.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Firefly), a provider of economical, and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft and in-space services, have announced that they have been selected by NASA for the award of a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract.