The June 2021 issue of  the Satellite Executive Briefing magazine focusing on New Space Services is now available.  Featuring:

The State of the Art in On-Orbit Services  by Elisabeth Tweedie

Microsatellite and Nanosatellite Markets by Mayank Halmare

Better Satellite World: A Promise Kept

Coming Out of the COVID Tunnel by Robert Bell

It's Singapore Virtually by Martin Jarrold

PLUS Products and Services Spotlight, Mergers and Acquisitions, Executive Moves, Market Briefs, Vital Statistics, Satellite Markets Stock Index and many more. Click here to read or download the file

If they asked me to write my personal history of the Pandemic the title would be, “You’re On Mute.”
While technology for sure allowed us to continue to do our work online, it is fact, as John Updike wrote, that “for every piece of candy there is a toothache somewhere.”

The Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) unanimously approved, at its meeting on June 21, $80.7 million for HISPASAT, the Spanish satellite telecommunications operator of the Grupo Red Eléctrica. This transaction will finance launch services and also launch and initial in-orbit insurance of Amazonas Nexus, which will be launched in 2022 on a SpaceX rocket.

NAB Show is now accepting nominations for the third annual Product of the Year awards. Companies scheduled to exhibit in either the 2020 or 2021 NAB Show are eligible. The awards recognize the most significant and promising new products and technologies developed by NAB Show exhibitors. Nominations are being accepted through September 17, 2021.

Xenesis, Inc., an innovator in the free space optical communications (FSO) technology sector acquired a minority stake in Space Micro Inc. Through this agreement, Space Micro will become the exclusive manufacturer for componentry used in the Xenesis product line (including Xen-Hubs and Xen-Nodes) and Space Micro will also include the Xenesis devices in its product catalog and website.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ: CMTL) today reported its operating results for the third fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2021 and updated its financial targets for fiscal 2021. The company reported consolidated net sales of US$ 139.4 million and Adjusted EBITDA of US$ 17.7 million (or 12.7% of consolidated net sales).

Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Highlights (all figures in US$)

Astra announced today its planned acquisition of Apollo Fusion in a transaction valued up to US$ 145 million. Apollo Fusion manufactures a leading electric propulsion engine. This acquisition allows Astra to provide launch and space services beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), to medium Earth orbit, geosynchronous, and lunar orbits.

The 1960s ushered in an era of human space exploration that has never been equaled.  Humans traveled farther from our planet than ever before – not once but half a dozen times – and those journeys sparked the dreams and ambitions of millions.  And then we stopped.  We flew robots to other planets.  We put satellites and space stations into orbit.  But people never again answered the call to leave our planet far behind in a quest for knowledge and opportunity, to open new horizons for others to follow.  
Never – until now.  

Many years ago, when I was part of a team considering an investment in Teledesic, one of the engineers at Hughes, produced a computer model, of what would happen if one of the satellites ran into a piece of orbital debris.  The assumption was, that this would cause it to break-up, so the satellite behind would inevitably run into the fragments and similarly break-up and so on.  The space equivalent of a freeway pile-up, technically known as the Kessler Effect, after the NASA scientist who first modeled this happening.  

Depending on where you are in the world today, the light at the end of the tunnel is either welcome daylight or an oncoming train.  Since it first appeared in late 2019, COVID-19 has been an unequal opportunity curse, killing many, sickening more and leaving even more of us untouched but isolated and afraid.  Now that vaccines are pouring out of production facilities and into people’s arms, the inequality has actually grown, varying from nation to nation based on economic might, the capabilities of governments and national and regional culture.