Viasat has completed its purchase of Eutelsat’s share of
Euro Broadband Infrastructure (EBI), the wholesale broadband services business, the company announced April 30. This purchase gives Viasat complete ownership of the KA-SAT satellite and related ground infrastructure. KA-SAT covers Europe and the Mediterranean region.
Viasat said this move diversifies its business portfolio in Europe, and sets the stage for its Europe, Middle East and Africa-focused ViaSat-3 satellite. The purchase was first announced in November 2020, with a purchase price of $166 million (140 million euro).
CEO Rick Baldridge said with the acquisition complete, Viasat will introduce new service offerings for its European broadband business.
Rendering of SES O3b Constellation. Photo: SES
While there is always huge excitement around new satellites and new capabilities in space, the drive to create improved and more efficient ground infrastructure is also coming sharply into focus. On Wednesday,
SES announced agreements with key infrastructure service providers around the world to build its eight initial O3b mPOWER satellite ground stations. Construction has already started on these advanced technology satellite ground stations, which will become operational in the second half of this year. The eight sites will provide telemetry, tracking and control capabilities to enable SES’s management of the Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) constellation.
Photo: Speedcast
Speedcast has secured a five-year contract with
Stena Drilling to expand its communications service with a new solution designed to maximize operational effectiveness and support the digital transformation of Stena’s global fleet. Speedcast announced the deal April 13. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The company has worked with Stena Drilling for years. Now, Speedcast said it will provide advanced Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) modem technology; multi-orbit and tri-band antenna systems; SD-WAN, out-of-band management and telemetry applications; and an enhanced design to maximize LTE coverage.
“Our team is keenly focused on investing in innovation and technology for our globally dispersed fleet,” said Ian Fraser, IT manager at Stena Drilling. “To accomplish our goals, it is paramount that we partner with a technology advocate that will work in collaboration with our team to continue enhancing the connectivity solutions we believe will maximiz
Last week’s
SATELLITE 2021 LEO Digital Forumfeatured many of the industry’s big hitters in a debate about how Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technologies and services will shape the future of the industry. Below, we list the 10 most essential moments and talking points to emerge from the series of presentations and group discussions that took place during the one-week event.
Telesat’s Dan Goldberg Says Ground Terminal Technology has Significantly Evolved During the Past Year.
Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg kicked off the event with some important updates on Telesat’s big LightSpeed announcement earlier this year. In a keynote fireside chat, Goldberg said the company is planning on making some key launch announcements in the near future. The system which will cost around $5 billion could be a gamechanger for Telesat. Goldberg confirmed the financing is “almost done”, and that it could be in place even in the next couple of months. He admitted that moving into LEO was huge f
Eric Berger, a soft-spoken
Ars Technica journalist, meteorologist, and lover of all things space-related, has spent a lot of time with Elon Musk during the past few years. While watching the billionaire
SpaceX founder closely as he sat in on board meetings and gathering with his family on flights to Texas, Berger discovered the formula behind the company’s two-decade ascension to space industry dominance.
It starts with Musk an enthralling, passionate, laser-focused, relentless, moody, and sometimes difficult leader, with a unique gift for engineering. His greatest talent, according to Berger, may be his ability to locate and surround himself with the “right” people those who mix well with his personality and can keep up pace for long periods of time. The people who helped Musk send his first Falcon rockets into space come into clear focus in Berger’s new book “Liftoff,” a widely-praised chronicle of SpaceX’s establishment in the early 2000s.