Satcoms

Arianespace will carry out a Launch Readiness Review (LRR) at the Guiana Space Centre on 3 December 2018 of the Ariane 5 satellite launch vehicle that will loft the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) GSAT-11 communications satellite and the Korean Aerospace Research Institute's GEO-KOMPSAT-2A meteorological satellite, and so authorize the start of operations for the final launch countdown.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a pioneer in cloud computing that has revolutionized entire economic sectors around the world, has entered the space and satellite market with the introduction of its Ground Station concept that is, in essence, a ground station as-a-service product for the global market.

Australian narrowband satellite communications New Space company, Sky and Space Global, has signed a distribution agreement with Latin American mobile satellite services (MSS) provider GlobalSat Group LLC to provide machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) coverage in South America.

Thaicom Public Company Limited, led by Prasert Bunsumpun, Chairman of the Board of Directors, received the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN) Corporate Governance Awards for the Top 50 ASEAN publicly listed companies category for the second consecutive time.

The Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, has announced its intention to build a constellation of satellites called Marathon to serve the expanding Internet of Things (IoT) market, as part of its Sphere satellite system.

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.

KT Sat, South Korea’s only commercial satellite communications company, has announced that it has created a working group to examine the integration of emerging technologies into its commercial offerings, to include blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Satellite communications innovator and space gateway Goonhilly Earth Station has joined the consortium backing the SmartSat CRC (co-operative research centre), a proposed space research initiative which plans to drive the Australian space industry through satellite technologies and analytics.

China and Myanmar held their first science and technology cooperation meeting in Yangon, where they established a joint radar and satellite communications laboratory as part of the nascent China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a part of the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

As climate change makes the Arctic region, also known as the High North, more navigable for conventional shipping and open to natural resource exploitation, so geopolitical competition between Arctic countries such as Canada, Russia, United States, and Scandinavian countries such as Norway intensifies.