Government/Military

Inmarsat‘s new CEO Rajeev Suri was reappointed to the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development on Sunday. Suri will continue to be a Commissioner and powerful voice on the organization that the ITU and UNESCO created in 2010 to prioritize universal broadband connectivity projects for global governments. Suri first joined the Commission in 2016 and...

NASA has struck an agreement with SpaceX that the agency hopes will prevent collisions involving its Low-Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft, the International Space Station (ISS) and SpaceX Starlink satellites. The agreement, which NASA published last week, involves no financial or services transaction. It acknowledged the need for a “special” agreement beyond standard practice between NASA...

President Joe Biden announced former Florida Senator Bill Nelson as his pick for NASA administrator on Friday. Nelson is 78 years old and represented Florida in the Senate for 18 years. Some in the space industry had expected Biden to nominate a woman for the role. Nelson chaired the Space Subcommittee in the U.S. House...

Attracting new people to the industry is one of recurring issues the satellite industry faces. While space has undoubtedly become cooler in recent years, there is still much work to be done across the globe to bring young people into the industry. The U.S. Army’s recent campaign “What’s Your Warrior” is working to attract Generation...

The FCC voted on Wednesday to reallocate 100 MHz of spectrum in the 3.45 GHz band to facilitate 5G deployment, and to hold an auction for the spectrum. The auction is set to begin in early October, and the FCC is now seeking comment on auction procedures.  The commission wants to make it easier for...

The U.S. Navy signed a five-year managed internet, Wi-Fi, and voice services contract extension with Viasat that adds the provision of additional high-definition TV service to the original agreement. The California-based satellite operator and communications company will continue to provide connectivity for the Navy Exchange Service Command’s (NEXCOM) personal use networks around the world. Viasat...

NASA has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to provide solid propulsion systems and controls for the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) that will be launched in 2026. The cost-plus, fixed-fee contract has a potential mission services value of $60.2 million and a maximum potential value of $84.5 million. NASA announced the award on March 4.  The...

Astra has won a $7.95 million launch contract with NASA to launch a constellation of six cubesats for storm research over three launches. NASA announced the firm fixed-price contract on Feb. 26.  Called TROPICS — the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats mission — is set to launch...

Verizon Wireless and AT&T were the top bidders in the FCC‘s C-band auction, which grossed more than $81 billion. The FCC on Wednesday announced the top winning bidders, 21 bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses. Verizon, bidding as Cellco Partnership, had total gross winning bids of $45.5 billion, and AT&T Spectrum Frontiers LLC...

Lockheed Martin has awarded L3Harris Technologies contracts totaling $137 million for four navigation payload Mission Data Units (MDU) for future GPS III Follow-on (GPS IIIF) satellites. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the GPS III and GPS IIIF satellites for the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS IIIF is the next phase of the military’s...