Tag Archives: China

Nigeria's NigComSat and Turkey's Turksat have agreed to jointly carve out a share of the satellite communications market in Africa, where they will collaborate to ensure the deployment of satellite solutions.

As part of its Arctic ambitions for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China is teaming up with Finland to develop space-based Arctic monitoring and surveillance. The China Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced this week that China and Finland have signed an agreement to establish a joint research centre for Arctic space observation and data sharing services.

Algeria's ALCOMSAT-1 communications satellite is operational in its orbital slot four months after its launch from China. A handover ceremony was held earlier in April 2018 at the Algerian satellite control centre that will handle all ALCOMSAT-1 operations between Algerian officials and engineers and executives from China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) who built and launched the satellite.

In another sign of growing Japanese strategic influence in Southeast Asia, a senior Japanese official has revealed that Malaysia is seeking satellite and other strategic technologies from the Japanese government and industry.

Dr. Roger Tong was appointed the new Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of AsiaSat on 16 April 2018 after Andrew Jordan, who held the company's top spot since late 2016 stepped down. Mr. Jordan will stay on as a senior advisor until the end of October 2018.

South Korea is considering joining the quest to clean up space debris in Earth orbit, and with it could end up unintentionally developing a dual-use antisatellite (ASAT) system. Following similar recent efforts by Japan and Europe, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information Communication Technology (ICT) held a meeting last week with industry, universities, and institutes in Seoul to discuss technologies to monitor the rising threat of space junk, as well as the development of technologies to remove space debris in Earth's orbit.

Dr. Nasser Saidi, one of the Middle East's preeminent economists and a former government minister for economics and finance in Lebanon, has said that Arab countries should embrace China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to include participation in and contributions to China's Tiangong space station as well as the Space and Digital Silk Roads.

China has opened its first overseas centre to promote its Beidou satellite navigation system (BDS) in Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia, on 10 April 2018.

Israel's Spacecom plans to pay for its AMOS-8 communications satellite by raising U.S.$110 million through collateral bonds and bond options, just as the bid by IDB Development Corporation Ltd. to buyout Spacecom’s parent company has expired.

Vietnam has formally joined the Japanese-led Asian Microsatellite Consortium (AMC) with the completion of its MicroDragon microsatellite, a move that will help the Southeast Asian country develop the necessary technologies and human capacities to design and produce further microsatellites, the Vietnam Space Center (VNSC) announced on 9 April 2018.