Mark Holmes is the editorial director for Via Satellite magazine and Avionics magazine.

We are coming to the end of another eventful year in the satellite industry. One of my favorite features to do each year is the “Year in Review” roundtable. This is the third time we have done this, and every year we have a different set of executives take part. This time we are delighted to have top executives from iDirect, Measat, RSCC, Intelsat General, Globalstar, and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting participating in this issue with their thoughts on 2013.

It is one of the quirks of fate that I have to write the “Year in Review” feature at the end of October when there are still a couple of months left to the year – as we know anything can happen during that time. Certainly, the big story over the next few weeks is SpaceX’s launch of the SES 8 satellite. This is scheduled to take place sometime in November, and is one of the most eagerly awaited launches of the year. The eyes of the industry, and probably a number of others besides, will be on this launch. We wish them the best of luck.

One of our other main features this month is a look at the SatComRus event in Dubna in October. I had the pleasure of speaking at this event for the first time, and we put the microscope on the Russian market, always fascinating one for satellite. In this issue we also bring you a feature on next-generation satellite technology for the military market. While this remains a tough market to do business in, it does have a lot of interesting dynamics, with demands for bandwidth certainly not going down unlike budgets.

We have also just opened up nominations for the Satellite Executive of the Year, the most prestigious award in our industry, which will be presented to the winner at the SATELLITE 2014 Conference & Exhibition. Picking a winner is likely to be harder than ever. But, I am like a broken record on this one – I say the same thing every year!