There’s an old joke amongst boat owners, which goes: “How do you end up with a $100,000 boat?” The answer is, “You start with a $200,000 boat.” Boats are a famous money pit, but so – it seems – is investing in a project such as Sir Richard Branson-backed Virgin Orbit. On May 25th, Virgin […]
Once upon a time there was Sea Launch, a US/Norway/Russia/Ukraine consortium that used a converted oil-rig plus a support ship, to equatorially launch rockets and their satellites from the sea and using Zenit rockets. Sea Launch operated from 1999 to 2014 and successfully launched 32 rockets, although suffered a total of three complete failures and […]
Research analysts MoffettNathanson (MN), at their first Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in New York City last week, made a number of individual recommendations to delegates. Not all were positive. Amongst the portfolio were Meta Platforms, Cogent Communications, video games business Roblox, Charter Communications and Paramount Global. Analyst Robert Fishman from MN said that even […]
Mark Dankberg, chairman of Viasat, said that his company’s airline clients were buying into the concept of geostationary satellites and that the recently launched ViaSat-3 satellite would make a major difference to its airline broadband services. Viasat serves 15 airlines including Delta Air Lines which represents major – and growing – demand on Viasat’s satellite […]
South Africa is now some 12 years behind in its much-promised full adoption of digital television and the switching off of analogue TV signals. The initial digital switch-over was supposed to happen back in November 2011. The latest switch-over date was March 31st 2023, and the date was again missed. The delays are blamed on […]
SpaceX regularly reuses its Falcon 9 booster rockets. Reuse levels of eight or 10 time are now fairly routine. Indeed, some boosters have now flow 13 to 15 times. William Gerstenmaier, VP/Build & Flight Reusability at SpaceX, now says that booster refurbishing is taking place to extend the life of a typical booster to a […]
Florida-based Terran Orbital is having a tough time. Following on from its May 15th quarterly report its share price dropped by almost 18 per cent, not helped by concerns that a major client might also be suffering a cash squeeze. May 16th saw a modest recovery of 1.6 per cent in its share price. Terran […]
Two major Class Actions are naming Liberty Media and CEO Greg Maffei in their allegations. One Class Action by shareholders in TripAdvisor, itself with a major shareholder in the shape of Liberty Media, can proceed with their lawsuit. The claim centres on a move by TripAdvisor from its existing Delaware domicile to Nevada and alleged […]
Canada-based satellite operator Telesat, which operates the Anik, Nimiq and Telstar satellites, failed to give investors or analysts any good news on its proposed $5 billion Lightspeed low Earth orbiting broadband fleet. In fact, the news was depressing given the frequent past promises and assurances that all was well with the project. Telesat President/CEO Dan […]
Eutelsat says that its upcoming merger with Low-Earth orbiting constellation OneWeb will achieve estimated savings for between €1.5 billion-€1.8 billion in the two businesses’ operational costs, measured against an overall cost to Eutelsat of an estimated €4 billion in terms of acquisition and investment. The Eutelsat and OneWeb merger is on track to close during […]