Satellite Communications
70,000 Satellites, One Big Bottleneck: The Industry Wakes Up to the Data Trap
Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. Novaspace Partner Nathan De Ruiter presented staggering figures. Opening the floor with an exclusive forecast, he predicted that 70,000 small satellites launching over the next decade will represent an investment of roughly $134 billion. Yet the ...
SES Executive Confirms End of the 15-Year Satellite Era
Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. Taking the stage, Dr. Bryan Benedict, Senior Director of Innovation at SES Space & Defense, dismantled rather than defended the legacy model. He described the merger between satellite giants SES and Intelsat that created a fleet ...
D2D’s Hype Hangover: The Physics Finally Bite Back
Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. The free drinks at SmallSat Symposium usually signal a celebration, but this year they feel more like a necessity. If 2024 was the year of the press release, early 2026 is the year of the hangover ...
The New Orbital Guard: Commercial Tech Steps Up as the Pentagon’s Watchtower
Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. The mood at the SmallSat Symposium has shifted from anxiety to resolve. While previous years were defined by fear of orbital overcrowding, this year marks the moment the industry decided to act. Experts at the Space ...
Kyivstar Hits 3.0 Million User Milestone for Starlink Direct to Cell Services
DUBAI and KYIV — On Thursday, January 15, 2026, VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON) announced that its Ukrainian subsidiary, Kyivstar, has reached 3.0 million registered users for its Starlink Direct to Cell satellite connectivity service. This milestone represents more than 10% ...
Permission to Shout: The Risks Inside the New SpaceX License
The battle for Direct-to-Device supremacy will now be decided here, on the ground, where competitors will look for any evidence that SpaceX's adaptive beams are degrading local service. SatNews Editorial Analysis Executive Summary The Event: The FCC's December 16, 2025, ...
SpaceX Activates Free Starlink Service in Iran Amid National Internet Blackout
Iranians with access to the approximately 50,000 to 100,000 smuggled terminals can now connect to the web ...
Back down to Earth: How invisible highways of light are outclassing orbital satellite connectivity (Reader Forum)
Wireless Optical Communication (WOC) is quietly providing the high-capacity backbone required to bridge the global digital divide without the inherent limitations of space-based infrastructure ...
Kratos EPOCH C2 Software Completes Factory Acceptance Testing for Airbus OneSat Platform
The testing process involved engineers from both organizations validating that EPOCH hardware and software could communicate with a simulated OneSat vehicle ...
SatNews Focus: The “Hotbird” Defense — Why Eutelsat’s Deal with beIN Matters in a LEO World
PARIS — While the industry's gaze is fixed on the mega-constellation race in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Eutelsat Group has delivered a potent reminder that Geostationary (GEO) real estate remains the financial bedrock of the global space economy. The operator ...
Musk’s next step could be expensive
By Chris Forrester — The past few days have seen the business pages full of reports that Elon Musk’s SpaceX could have a value of some $800 billion. The reports had plenty of credibility and built on the truly fabulous ...
Startical Advances Space-Based ATM
MADRID — The race to provide seamless, global air traffic management (ATM) from orbit accelerated today as Startical, the joint venture formed by Indra and the Spanish air navigation service provider Enaire, with its operational "Startical Constellation". Following successful validation ...
Shield AI Expands into Space Domain with Sedaro
WASHINGTON – (December 3, 2025) – Shield AI and Sedaro have announced a strategic partnership focused on advancing autonomous operations in the orbital domain. The collaboration establishes Shield AI’s Hivemind Pilot as Sedaro’s preferred autonomy software for on-orbit demonstrations, extending ...
Iridium was awarded a new infrastructure contract
Iridium Communications holds a long-standing and strategic partnership with the U.S. Space Force (USSF), primarily centered around the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMSS) program. Most recently, on December 2, 2025, Iridium was awarded a new infrastructure contract (SITH), further solidifying ...
Moody’s upgrades Eutelsat
Moody’s Ratings has upgraded Eutelsat Communications SA’s long-term corporate family rating to Ba3 from B2, the rating agency announced Monday ...
Orange becomes the 1st European operator to offer satellite SMS service via Skylo
Orange recently became the first European operator to offer satellite SMS service with Skylo, a non-terrestrial network operator (NTN), to be initially offered to Google Pixel 9 or 10 smartphones owners on an exclusive basis. Orange announced the launch of ...
Proximus Global + Starlink to expand Direct-to-Cell satellite connectivity in Europe
BICS, a Proximus Global company, and Starlink have entered into a strategic partnership, appointing BICS as the preferred IPX provider in Europe for Starlink’s direct-to-cell satellite connectivity services. The collaboration enables Starlink to leverage the IPX network to connect mobile ...
OQ Technology achieves Europe’s 1st D2M emergency broadcast message from space
OQ Technology has achieved a major technological milestone using its LEO satellite constellation to successfully deliver Europe’s first direct-to-mobile (D2M) emergency broadcast message from space — transmitted directly to standard smartphones without any hardware or software modifications. This milestone makes ...
SES + Relativity Space expand their MLA for Terran R
SES, earlier this month, extended a multi-year, multi-launch services agreement with Relativity Space which is building the Terran R rocket—the companies are partnering for multiple launches aboard Terran R, a medium-to-heavy-lift, reusable launch vehicle, that will bring the selected SES ...
Viasat completes network control station installations for Spanish MoD
Viasat has worked with the Spanish Ministry of Defence (MoD) to install two redundant Network Control Stations (NCSs) to support two satellites, SpainSat NG I and SpainSat NG II.—one ground station controls the UHF Time Domain Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, ...
