EchoStar rebuffed after making offer to buy Inmarsat
It has been made public that in early-June, major American satellite operator EchoStar Corp. made an “… indicative non-binding proposal… ” for the entirety of British Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) provider Inmarsat plc. In a document published...
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May and June construction announcements: Angosat-2 the remake on way as are JPSS-3, JPSS-4 and PLATO
Having lost their first satellite Angosat-1 shortly after launch last year, in May the Angolan National Space Programme Management Office (GGPEN) formally announced the order of a YAMAL USP (VICTORIA) bus/platform replacement from RSC Energia. The finance for the...
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Space World Cup: Australians get to see matches for free by order of the PM after Optus streaming service fails
The decision to allow a pay-TV service to have a monopoly of some World Cup matches via the Optus communications satellites has come back to bite the Australian government. Apart from being unpopular in the first place – most nations have all the matches on...
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US President Donald Trump announces plan for US Space Force and hints at helping Elon Musk reach Mars
Having had a successful, if insubstantial, peace making summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, US President Donald J. Trump returned to the White House, to much discord, either due to US familial separation of illegal immigrant children, or due to the imposition...
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Glonass satellite is launched by Soyuz 2-1b/Fregat M
A Soyuz 2-1b/Fregat M rocket was launched from the Plesetsk launch site in Northern Russia at 2146 GMT on 16 June 2018. The Glonass M-59 satellite aboard, now dubbed Cosmos 2527 under the military designation system, was a Glonass navigation satellite which fits into...
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ISS spacewalkers fix camera brackets
Astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold made an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), otherwise known as a spacewalk from the International Space Station (ISS) on 14 June 2018. Arnold and Feustel installed some brackets and high-definition cameras on the Harmony module...
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Martian dust storm may have caused Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity to bite the dust…at least for now
A large dust storm on Mars which began on 30 May 2018, started to diminish power generation as the sun was blocked out on the Opportunity Mars rover’s solar arrays. This became serious from 8 June when science operations were commanded to be ended. On 10 June...
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Europeans join investors in space launch concept firms PLD Space and SpinLaunch
As Europe’s aerospace firms start to realise that they have to get ahead of the curve in space launch technology rather than just be a follower to the likes of SpaceX, they have started investing. The Spanish firm, PLD Space, which is attempting to build a...
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Todd May – the well-regarded “midwife” of SLS – is to retire from NASA
Napoleon once said that he did not care if his generals were any good, but rather, whether they were lucky. Todd May, was, and is, both. The very well regarded current director of the NASA Marshall Space Center, and “midwife” of the SLS Heavy Lift launch...
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IGS Radar 6 is launched by H-2A
After suffering a one day delay due to predicted bad weather, the IGS Radar-6 satellite aka IGS-6 (Radar) was launched at 0420 GMT on 12 June 2018 from the launch site and Tanegashima, Japan by an H-2A 202 rocket operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The...
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