SIA Member News Headlines
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SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR DECEMBER 2019 Since our last SIA Member News Summary, press releases and posts from many SIA Members including Boeing, Eutelsat, Hawkeye 360, Hughes, Iridium, Inmarsat, Kuiper Systems, Omnispace, Panasonic, Planet, SpaceX, Spire and Viasat have released news. Please see the summary of stories and postings below and click on the COMPANY LINK for more details. KUIPER SYSTEMS On Dec 18th, Amazon posted the following. “Earlier this year we announced Project Kuiper, a new initiative to launch a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. Since its inception, the Project Kuiper team has made significant progress towards our goal to serve tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet. As Amazon’s Project Kuiper team continues to make great strides, the team has once again outgrown its current facility. With that in mind, we are leasing and renovating a long term home for the Kuiper team in Redmond, WA, which will become Kuiper’s primary headquarters for research & development, as well as its primary prototype manufacturing and qualification facility. Amazon Kuiper’s new state-of-the-art facility will consist of two buildings with a total of 219,000 square feet of space. It will include offices and design space, R&D labs, and prototype manufacturing facilities. Renovations on the facility are already underway, and the Kuiper team will move into the new site in 2020.” BOEING On Dec 16th, Boeing aannounced that a Boeing-built satellite called JCSAT-18/Kacific1 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida at about 7:10 p.m. It will enter service several weeks after on-orbit tests and moving to its final geostationary orbit position over the Asia-Pacific region. The satellite is designed to provide affordable internet access and other communications services to underserved parts of Asia and the Pacific islands. Built on Boeing’s 702 satellite platform, the satellite will deliver internet services to a potential market comprising hundreds of millions of people in more than 25 countries, including remote islands in the Pacific and the far eastern part of Russia. The satellite was launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. VIASAT On Dec 11th, Viasat Inc., announced the availability of reliable, high-speed, high-quality internet service for residential customers in Mexico. Customers will be able to subscribe to a home satellite internet service with speeds in select areas up to 50 Megabits per second (Mbps), enabling them to enjoy online access to social media, streaming content, video call services, sending/receiving emails and using unlimited chat and web browsing. Viasat has established itself as a trusted, credible satellite internet provider. The Company has successfully deployed its Community Wi-Fi hotspot service across the country, using satellite-enabled Wi-Fi hotspots to deliver affordable internet service to remote communities that previously had little or no internet connectivity. Viasat has also collaborated with local partners in Mexico on the ‘Internet para Todos’ program, connecting government buildings, federal clinics and schools to the internet over Viasat’s satellite systems. Additionally, Viasat has been contracted by Aeroméxico to bring high-speed in-flight connectivity to a portion of the airline’s commercial fleet. HAWKEYE 360 On Dec 11th, HawkEye 360 Inc., announced it has been awarded a contract for a commercial RF survey study from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Through the contract, HawkEye 360 will examine the integration of commercial RF capabilities and products into the NRO’s geospatial intelligence architecture. “This award from the NRO will further our efforts to make our RF data readily accessible to serve the U.S. government,” said John Serafini, Chief Executive Officer, HawkEye 360. “We believe our satellites can complement traditional government systems, introducing a commercial signals capability that is easy to access and share in support of mission needs.” IRIDIUM On Dec 11th, Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) announced the first seven companies it has authorized to provide its Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) services, SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR DECEMBER 2019 planned for commercial introduction in the first half of 2020. The seven companies, Arion Communications, AST, Marlink, Marsat, NSSL Global, Satcom Global and Speedcast will be the first in the industry to provide truly global satellite GMDSS service to mariners, and the first to offer a new choice in satellite network and equipment. Iridium® GMDSS will be the first to feature all three GMDSS services - safety voice, distress alerting and maritime safety information messaging, as well as being able to utilize Iridium's global voice and data services – all in one cost-effective and compact terminal. These new GMDSS service providers will play a critical role in delivering and supporting Iridium GMDSS capabilities on ships, including for fleets interested in transitioning to the truly global Iridium network. Selection as an Iridium GMDSS service provider is based on meeting a number of requirements including having 24/7 customer support, a strong global or regional footprint, a robust portfolio of maritime value-added services and an excellent track record with maritime safety and security-related services. Additional companies are expected to become Iridium GMDSS service providers in the near future. EUTELSAT and PANASONIC On Dec 5th, Eutelsat and Panasonic announced that Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic), a market leader in in-flight entertainment and connectivity, has signed a multi- year agreement for Ku-band capacity on two multi-beam payloads on the EUTELSAT 10B satellite, due to be launched in 2022. This contract with Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) will enable Panasonic to provide multiple gigahertz of new extreme throughput (XTS[1]) Ku-band connectivity to airlines and their passengers flying over a wide area across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Panasonic will continue to optimize its worldwide network and add more state-of-the-art satellite capacity in high- density regions to ensure it can deliver very high performance everywhere its customers fly. This satellite also provides high performance over lower density area such as Africa. HUGHES On Dec 4th, Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) announced that SES (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) will employ the Hughes JUPITER™ System to enable services on its SES-17 satellite, which is being built by Thales Alenia Space and expected to launch in 2021. The agreement calls for Hughes to supply its next-generation ground network system, including data centers and hub equipment, which will operate over SES-17, a satellite with a highly flexible payload optimized for aviation connectivity and other high-powered data services across the Americas, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. OMNISPACE On Dec 3rd, Omnispace announced that its subsidiary Omnispace México S. de R.L de C.V. was successful in its bid for a concession to build and operate a terrestrial network in Mexico to complement its global satellite infrastructure. The company will be the first to converge both terrestrial and satellite communications to create a single, reliable hybrid network globally. The authorization in Mexico to provide the Complementary Ground Component (CGC) of the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) represents the first of many major market milestones in the company's development of its unique "one global network" communications system. Mexico's Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) awarded the CGC concession in tandem with Omnispace México's pre-existing MSS authorization in the 2 GHz frequency band, allowing Omnispace to deploy terrestrial infrastructure in Mexico. With this unique combination of satellite and terrestrial technologies, customers in urban and rural areas will benefit from secure, reliable and cost-effective mobile connectivity and better performance from their existing mobile devices across the country. The Omnispace CGC network will operate on 4G LTE standards and support deployments in 3GPP bands 65 and 66. SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR DECEMBER 2019 INMARSAT On Nov 27th, Inmarsat confirmed the successful launch of GX5, the fifth satellite in its Global Xpress (GX) fleet. The satellite was lifted into orbit by an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from the Ariane Launch Complex No. 3 (ELA-3) in Kourou, French Guiana. GX5 is scheduled to enter commercial service in early 2020 and deliver additional, focused broadband capacity over Europe and the Middle East. “This marks the first of eight launches in the coming four years that will grow our world-leading services to meet rapidly-expanding demand, connecting people around the world to reach their full potential,” said Rupert Pearce, CEO, Inmarsat. “GX5 will also continue to ensure that Inmarsat’s thousands of Global Xpress customers remain at the cutting-edge of global connectivity technologies as their needs evolve.” (Photo credit: Arianespace) PLANET On Nov 26th, Planet announced that 12 SuperDove satellites (Flock 4p) were successfully launched and deployed into a 500 kilometer Sun Synchronous Orbit by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). This marks 25 successful launches for Planet and our 407th satellite launch attempt. Shortly after launch, Planet’s Mission Operations team successfully made contact with all twelve satellites and initiated the satellite phasing and commissioning process, continuing Planet’s long standing record of 100 percent success rate in contacting each Dove satellite after launch. Following the successful launch, the Flock 4p satellites would undergo detumbling maneuvers, various subsystem health checks, solar panel deployments, and calibration of their imagery systems. SPIRE On Nov 5th, Spire Global, Inc. announced that the Washington D.C. metro area will become a vital hub for the space-to-cloud analytics company. The new office represents the third U.S. office for the company and the sixth presence worldwide.