February 2015

Orbital Sciences President and CEO David Thompson on the left, and ATK President and CEO Mark DeYoung on the right. Photos: ATK and Orbital Sciences [Via Satellite 02-19-2015] In the first conference call following their merger, David Thompson, CEO of Orbital ATK, unveiled the recently integrated company to investors and analysts alongside post-merger outlooks and…

Hispasat control center. Photo: Hispasat [Via Satellite 02-19-2015] In 2014, Spanish satellite telecommunications operator Hispasat saw flat revenues, reporting a total of $230 million — roughly equal to the $229 million made in the previous fiscal year. The operator sees the steady revenues as a positive development in light of a harsh Spanish economy alongside…

Inside view of an Air Traffic Control tower. Photo: Aireon [Via Satellite 02-19-2015] Aireon has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Agency for the Security of Aviation Navigation in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) to provide Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) capabilities to the West and Central African regions. ASECNA, the Air Navigation Service Provider…

[Via Satellite 02-19-2015] Airbus Defense and Space has started work on the Mustang project for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, in partnership with the SMEs Sigfox and Sysmeca, and the CEA-Leti research center. The project focuses on low-cost exchange of short messages in the fast-growing M2M market, with the aim to develop a global, hybrid terrestrial/satellite access…

IDC’s Star Pro Audio. Photo: IDC [Via Satellite 02-19-2015] Peru’s Grupo Panamericana de Radios has deployed International Datacasting Corporation’s (IDC’s) Star Pro Audio Solution to distribute radio programming to listeners across the country. IDC has delivered the Star Pro Audio solution and reports that the network is fully deployed and operational in the Latin American…

Bill Wijdeveld, 
VP of business development at M7 Group. Photo: M7 Group [Via Satellite 02-18-2015] Satellite service provider M7 Group has grown to become one of the top five pay-TV operators in Europe. Following Sky, the company is the second largest cross-regional operator on the continent. Last year the acquisition of Eutelsat’s KabelKiosk direct-to-cable pay-TV…

Intelsat’s new McLean, Va. headquarters. Photo: Intelsat [Via Satellite 02-18-2015] Intelsat’s total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $619.1 million, with net income of $16.2 million. Revenues for the year ended Dec. 31, 2014 were approximately $2.5 billion, with net income of $232.5 million. For the quarter, the percentage of Intelsat’s revenue from…

The Hispasat AG1 satellite inside OHB’s cleanroom. Photo: OHB [Via Satellite 02-18-2015] OHB System has completed the integration of Hispasat’s upcoming satellite Hispasat Advanced Generation 1. The satellite is the first to be based on the small-GEO platform jointly developed by OHB and the European Space Agency (ESA). For the next few weeks, Hispasat AG1…

Digital rendition of S3′s spaceport. Photo: S3 [Via Satellite 02-18-2015] Swiss Space Systems (S3) has inaugurated a new subsidiary in Croatia, where the company hopes to build a spaceport as well as a facility for manufacturing the upper stage of the SOAR launch vehicle. S3’s suborbital SOAR shuttle is a reusable small satellite launch vehicle…

Berlin, Germany at night. Photo: Alexander Steinhof (Flickr) [Via Satellite 02-18-2015] New research from SES pegged the number of houses receiving HD television in Germany at 17.6 million in 2014, an increase of roughly 24 percent from 2013. The company’s own German HD platform HD+ surpassed 3 million households by the end of 2014, with…