SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR MARCH 2020 Since our last SIA Member News Summary, press releases and posts from many SIA Members including ABS, Blue Origin, Globalstar, Hawkeye 360, Hughes, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Lynk, Lockheed Martin, OneWeb, Planet, SES, SpaceX, and Viasat have released news. Please see the summary of stories and postings below and click on the COMPANY LINK for more details. LOCKHEED MARTIN ON Mar 27th, Lockheed Martin announced that during the COVD-19 pandemic, the company would “be guided by and operate with three clear priorities. First, we will continue to protect the health and safety of our men and women on the job and their families. Second, we will continue to perform and deliver for our customers because what they do for our national security, global communications, and infrastructure is critical to our nation and our allies. Third, we will do our part to use our know-how, resources, and leadership as a company to assist our communities and our country during this period of national crisis.” The Company announced it would take numerous steps as an initial contribution to the national COVID-19 relief and recovery effort including advancing millions of dollars to its supply chain partners, donating funds to non-profit organizations involved in pandemic assistance, donating use of its corporate aircraft, vehicles and activating its employee and retiree disaster relief fund. Read the full list of initiatives at the LOCKHEED MARTIN link above. ONEWEB On Mar 27th, OneWeb announced that the Company and certain of its controlled affiliates had voluntarily filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The Company intends to use these proceedings to pursue a sale of its business in order to maximize the value of the company. To date, the Company has successfully launched 74 satellites as part of its constellation, secured valuable global spectrum, begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development, and performed successful demonstrations of its system with broadband speeds in excess of 400 Mbps and latency of 32 ms. In addition, OneWeb’s commercial team has seen significant early global demand for OneWeb’s high-speed, low-latency connectivity services from governments and leaders in the automotive, maritime, enterprise, and aviation industries. BLUE ORIGIN On Mar 25th, Blue Origin announced as more schools around the country shift to online learning amidst the COVID-19 crisis, Blue Origin’s nonprofit Club for the Future is seeking to build community during this isolated time at home by encouraging students, educators and parents to draw postcards answering the question: “What would you build in space that could help Earth?” The postcards will be flown to space on an upcoming flight of Blue Origin’s fully reusable New Shepard rocket, then sent back to the participating students. For more details, click on the BLUE ORIGIN link above. PLANET On Mar 24th, Planet announced its new partnership with Seisan, a custom software solutions and systems integration company specializing in leveraging geospatial technologies. By becoming a premiere Planet partner, Seisan can offer next-level competitive advantages and insights into many industry verticals. Planet has redefined every aspect of the Earth imaging pipeline to quickly deliver actionable insights to users. Leveraging this unique dataset, Seisan will be able to build machine learning imagery analysis along with traditional systems integration and data transformation techniques. These software solutions will bring an unprecedented level of geospatial awareness that has been previously impossible to achieve. Integrating Planet’s geospatial data within an enterprise’s current technical environment will allow companies to gain greater insights from location data, leading to productivity savings, operational cost reductions and increased situational awareness. SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR MARCH 2020 GLOBALSTAR On March 23rd, Globalstar, Inc. announced that the Third Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”) has approved the 5G variant of Globalstar’s Band 53, which will be known as n53. Jay Monroe, Executive Chairman of Globalstar, commented, “Achieving 5G status with our band is a significant advancement in our spectrum efforts. New networks around the world will be built utilizing 5G’s advanced technology and our resource will now work in those networks. We appreciate the industry’s continued support of our spectrum and applaud the 3GPP working group for their approval.” John Dooley, Managing Director of Jarvinian Advisors, added, “5G networks will increasingly rely upon high-density small cell deployments. What is needed for the spectrum inventory is a band with advantageous propagation qualities that can be devoted entirely to small cell use which Band n53 can provide. Band n53 can also act as a traffic channel or as an anchor for other licensed or unlicensed bands in 5G networks, allowing rapid and economical deployment of a licensed spectrum band.” HUGHES On Mar 20th, Hughes released a statement regarding COVID-19. “At Hughes, we are committed to connecting people and enterprises around the world, and we know that now, in the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, staying connected is more important than ever. To help ensure we can continue to meet our customers’ needs, we are protecting the health and well-being of our employees and partners with measures such as teleworking, restricting visitors to our facilities, and social distancing for essential staff who must come into our offices or customers’ facilities to perform their jobs. We are working with our local field service partners around the world to establish contingency plans for installing and servicing our customers’ networks. Across our company and around the world, we continue to re-evaluate our mitigation measures and business continuity plans to keep our customers connected.” To view the entire statement, please click on the HUGHES link above. INMARSAT On Mar 20th, Inmarsat Government posted the following. “At SATELLITE 2020, Inmarsat Government’s Senior Vice President for Government Strategy and Policy, Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch spoke with The Satellite Evolution Group’s Richard Hooper. During this conversation, Cowen-Hirsch discusses Inmarsat’s Global Xpress fleet and shares her thoughts on the SATCOM industry. Cowen-Hirsch outlines the roadmap for the future of the Global Xpress fleet, highlighting the recent successful GX5 launch that will expand the fleet’s capabilities.” To read the complete post, please click on the INMARSAT link above. LYNK On Mar 18th, Lynk announced that it had successfully connected a satellite in low-Earth orbit to an ordinary mobile phone on Earth. The technical breakthrough enabled Lynk to send the first ever text message from space to a mobile phone. This milestone, witnessed by independent third-party observers, represents the critical, industry-first next step for Lynk’s ultimate vision to use satellites to provide broadband services directly to over five billion mobile phones on the planet, everywhere. “This is a game changer for the billions of people who own a mobile phone, for the billions who do not have affordable connectivity, and for the entire mobile communications industry. In the near future, you will stay connected everywhere. All the time,” said Charles Miller, Co-founder and CEO of Lynk. Lynk’s historic test took place on February 24, 2020, using the firm’s patented “cell tower in space” technology — low-Earth orbit nanosatellites that connect directly to unmodified mobile phones. Lynk has successfully repeated the test multiple times, including with independent observers. SPACEX On Mar 18th, SpaceX posted the following regarding its latest launch of 60 new Starlink broadband satellites. At 8:16 a.m. EDT, or 12:16 UTC, on Wednesday, March 18, SpaceX launched its sixth Starlink mission. Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Falcon 9’s first stage previously supported the Iridium-7 NEXT mission in July 2018, the SAOCOM 1A mission in October 2018, the Nusantara Satu mission in February 2019, and the second launch of Starlink in November 2019. Falcon 9’s fairing previously supported the first launch of Starlink in May 2019. SIA PRESIDENT’S REPORT – MEMBER NEWS FOR MARCH 2020 INTELSAT On Mar 17th, Intelsat (NYSE: I) announced it has selected SpaceX as its launch partner for Intelsat 40e (IS-40e). The launch is planned for 2022 on SpaceX’s American-built Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Intelsat 40e is an advanced geostationary satellite that will provide Intelsat’s government and enterprise customers across North and Central America with high-throughput, “coast-to-coast” services. The satellite’s capabilities will support the growing number of customers that depend on Intelsat’s managed services and solutions to easily integrate satellite into their overall networking and communications strategies. VIASAT On Mar 16th, Viasat announced its commitment to meet the FCC’s “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. Viasat will work with its residential and small business customers to keep them connected, lessening potential health and economic impacts associated with the coronavirus. In alignment with the FCC’s request to all Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Viasat pledges for the next 60 days to: (1) not terminate service to any residential or small business customers because of their inability to pay their bills due to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic; (2) waive any late fees that any residential or small business customers incur because of their economic circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic; and (3) open its Wi-Fi hotspots, in conjunction with partners, to any American who needs them. LOCKHEED MARTIN On Mar 16th Lockheed Martin announced that its Board of Directors had elected James D. Taiclet, 59, as president and CEO, effective June 15.