U.S.-based satellite communications provider Viasat on Nov. 8 announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based Inmarsat in a transaction valued at $7.3 billion that would create an unrivaled, multiband space and terrestrial network serving aviation, maritime and other markets.
Three-year-old New York startup Innovative Rocket Technologies on Nov. 4 said it has signed an agreement with two-year-old Turion Space of Irvine, California, to launch 20 of the latter’s proposed Droid orbital-debris-removing satellites to low Earth orbit via iRocket’s planned Shockwave launcher.
UK startup Isotropic Systems has demonstrated the first simultaneous connections with communications satellites in different orbits, its solid-state terminal linking to SES spacecraft in both geostationary and medium Earth orbits at the same time.
Recently public new-space company Redwire is buying Techshot, a microgravity biotechnology company that provided the first U.S. system capable of manufacturing human tissue in microgravity, among other innovations.
Spurred by rising space business opportunities, reinsurance and risk management service provider Applied Underwriters on Nov. 1 said it was taking on former PartnerRe Direct and Facultative Space staff for a new Washington-based joint venture called Applied Underwriters Aerospace.
Amazon said Nov. 1 it will launch the KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 prototype satellites for its low Earth orbit-based broadband offering via two ABL Space Systems RS1 rockets from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in a year.
Small-satellite startup Terran Orbital, backed by Lockheed Martin and others, plans to become a publicly traded company after a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, the companies announced late Oct. 28.
A Northrop Grumman census is now tracking 164 small-satellite launch programs, although 46 of the projects are effectively defunct and the status of nine others is unknown.
A team of heritage and new space companies headed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space plan to build, launch and operate an International Space Station-class commercial outpost in low Earth orbit that can be tailored and expanded to accommodate a broad array of scientific, technological, business, entertainment and other pursuits.
Ahead of NASA’s selection of up to four proposals to support development of commercial space stations, a team led by Nanoracks unveiled plans on Oct. 21 for a four-person outpost called Starlab, with initial operational capability expected by 2027.
