Satellite Launch Business

Shareholder’s of Israel’s Spacecom, operator of the Amos fleet of commercial communications satellites, announced on 24 August 2016 that they has agreed to sell the company for U.S.$285 million to Chinese telecommunications company Beijing Xinwei Technology Group Co. Ltd. It is believed that the sale will proceed, subject to Israeli …

Qatar’s Es’hailSat has announced that it’s Es’hail-2 satellite will now be launched in the third quarter of 2017 rather than in December 2016 as originally planned. There has been no word as to why the launch date for Es’hail-2 has slipped by at least six months. Es’hail-2 will be launched …

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed three new members to the Supreme Council of Space – the supreme space policy-making body in Iran – on 14 August 2016. The three individuals appointed to the Supreme Council of Space are Elham Aminzadeh, Mostafa Safavi-Homami and Hassan Shafti. Each appointment lasts for four …

Algeria’s AlSat-Nano is being readied for launch sometime between late August and early September 2016 from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Andhra Pradesh on the eastern coast of India. AlSat-Nano is sharing the launch into orbit on an ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) …

The Egyptian government, under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has agreed upon draft legislation that will eventually create a national space agency for the belaboured country. The announcement was made on 3 August 2016, and aims to harness space technologies for the purposes of economic development and for …

Virgin Galactic, the spaceflight company founded and owned by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, received an important regulatory go-ahead on 1 August 2016 to resume flight-testing of its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST) awarded Virgin Galactic an operator license for SpaceShipTwo. The …

Intelsat S.A., operator of the world’s first Globalized Network, powered by its leading satellite backbone, announced today that Intelsat 33e, the second of the Intelsat EpicNG series of high throughput satellites (HTS), arrived at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will undergo final preparations before its …

The Kuwaiti cabinet, the Council of Ministers, is considering the acquisition and launch of a satellite, according to local reports in Kuwait City. Draft legislation has been submitted to the cabinet from the Communications and Information Technology Commission. The reports say that the cabinet has formed a committee to examine …

Final preparations are underway at Lockheed Martin to ship DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 earth imaging satellite to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for a 15 September 2016 launch. The Lockheed Martin team is completing final satellite testing and checkout before shipment. Testing includes calculating the weight and center of gravity of WorldView-4, …

The head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA), Mohsen Bahrami, announced on 12 July 2016 that Iran will launch at least two indigenously built satellites by March 2017. Speaking at a press conference, Dr. Bahrami said, “At-Sat [also known as AUTSAT-1], Nahid 1, and Dousti are the satellites their design …