Shipment of Viasat's ViaSat-3 satellite to Boeing for launch rocket integration and testing is "imminent," with ViaSat still expecting an early 2022 launch, it said Tuesday. announcing results for the quarter ended March 31. It said its RigNet and Euro Broadband Infrastructure acquisitions give it a more global presence and move it into new vertical and geographical markets. It said FY 2021 revenue was $2.3 billion, down 2% year over year.
Iridium invested in Scottish global navigation satellite system services firm DDK Positioning, Iridium said Monday. DDK uses the satellite operator's constellation to provide global precision positioning services that can augment GNSS constellations such as GPS. Iridium said DDK is developing similar services for other GNSS constellations such as Beidou and Glonass.
Kacific Broadband Satellites International seeks U.S. market access for its Kacific-1 geostationary orbit satellite and blanket authority for up to 1,000 earth station antennas to be deployed in American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, said an FCC International Bureau application Friday. It said the Japan-licensed satellite aims to deliver satellite broadband to schools, hospitals, businesses, governmental organizations and the community in those U.S. territories using the 19.7-20.2 GHz band for downloads and 29.6-29.7 GHz and 29.75-29.8 GHz bands for uploads.
FAA-licensed commercial space launches “dramatically accelerated” since the first one in 2011, with growth expected to continue, the agency blogged Saturday. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo flight from Spaceport America in New Mexico Saturday was the 400th such launch.
If the FCC doesn't stay its April approval of SpaceX's license modification (see 2104260044) by June 1, Viasat will seek a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, it told the FCC International Bureau Friday in a stay request. It said a stay is warranted because of the potential harm to Viasat and the public due to the agency's violation of the National Environmental Policy Act for failing even to assess the environmental impact of deploying thousands of low earth orbit satellites. It said the collision risks and possible pollution to the orbital environment, plus light pollution, warrant at least an environmental assessment before making a decision. The FCC and SpaceX didn't comment Monday.
A GI Partners buy of Orbcomm would give the satellite operator access to financial, managerial and technical resources that would help it be more competitive in the global IoT market, Orbcomm said in an FCC International Bureau application Friday seeking OK of license transfers to GI. The $1.1 billion investment firm acquisition was announced last month. The deal includes investment by a company formed to manage foreign reserves of Singapore, Orbcomm said. It said that group would be a passive investor, indirectly hold roughly 19% of Orbcomm and have no governance rights. It said the deal doesn't trigger any national security concerns since no foreign person will control Orbcomm and there won't be any changes to the existing location or control of any Orbcomm network facility.
Orbital Sidekick hopes to start launches of its six-satellite global hyperspectral observation constellation in Q1, it said in an FCC International Bureau application Thursday: The constellation should be fully deployed by Q4 2022. The six will operate at 500-600 kilometers, it said. It asked for partial waiver of its $30,000 application fee (see 2012300044).
Telesat and Brazil's TIM Brasil completed in-orbit 4G mobile data backhaul testing using Telesat's Phase 1 low earth orbit satellite, Telesat said Thursday. It said it achieved an average of 38 milliseconds of round-trip latency. Telesat said the testing demonstrates the ability of its forthcoming Lightspeed constellation to bring backhaul connectivity to underserved regions.
Viasat closed on its $222 million RigNet acquisition announced late last year (see 2012210006), the buyer said in an FCC International Bureau transfer of control notification Tuesday.
Telesat raises a valid point that SpaceX's petition for reconsideration of the Part 25 satellite rules order adopted last year (see 2105070044) shouldn't draw a distinction between geostationary and non-geostationary orbit systems due to the proliferation of GSO deployments, SpaceX replied in FCC docket 18-314 Tuesday. It said there's evidence the longer earth station deployment deadline is incentivizing spectrum warehousing. SES/O3b supported Telesat's suggested cap for NGSO and GSO systems on unbuilt individually licensed earth stations that face extended construction periods.