Author: starpathwp-production

The FCC approved SES’s acquisition of Intelsat on Friday, determining that the combination will create “a more vigorous satellite competitor.” With this approval, the deal is set to close this week. SES announced Monday it plans to close the transaction around July 17. The FCC’s review of the competitive satellite landscape around the acquisition encompassed…

Russia is a waning space power, but President Vladimir Putin has made sure he still has a saber to rattle in orbit. This has become more evident in recent weeks, when we saw a pair of rocket launches carrying top-secret military payloads, the release of a mysterious object from a Russian mothership in orbit, and…

Varda Space Industries raised a $187 million Series C round to scale the company’s work to build in-space pharmaceutical labs and hypersonic reentry test capabilities.  Varda has completed three launch and re-entry missions — returning two capsules already this year, one in February and another in May. The missions have tested pharmaceutical properties in space…

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently demonstrated the first deep-space optical communication with a European ground segment, communicating with NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment onboard the Psyche mission.  ESA detailed the demonstration that took place on July 7 in which a ground laser transmitter at the Kryoneri Observatory in Greece sent a beacon…

The Trump administration’s plan to gut the Office of Space Commerce and cancel the government’s first civilian-run space traffic control program is gaining plenty of detractors. Earlier this week, seven space industry trade groups representing more than 450 companies sent letters to House and Senate leaders urging them to counter the White House’s proposal. A…