After Viasat confirmed last week that it had received $436 million in cash in an initial payment from AST SpaceMobile as part of the latter's Ligado spectrum transaction, AST could potentially strike similar arrangements to lease spectrum in markets outside the U.S., William Blair's Louie DiPalma wrote investors Monday. In a call with analysts Friday, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg also said United Launch Alliance anticipates putting up the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite at the end of this week. Getting it and Flight 3 into service will be a big step for Viasat, he said, as each will enable more bandwidth capacity than Viasat's entire existing fleet.
Lunar transportation company Intuitive Machines said Tuesday it has struck a deal to purchase satellite builder Lanteris Space Systems, formerly Maxar Space Systems, for $800 million in cash and stock. “Intuitive Machines’ vision is to expand its space infrastructure services from [low earth orbit to geostationary orbit], beyond the Moon, and to Mars,” said Chairman Kam Ghaffarian. “In a time where we see a strong convergence of commercial, civil, and national security space, this strategic acquisition is a transformative step towards realizing that vision.” The sale is expected to close in Q1 2026, pending regulatory approvals.
Vodafone will use Iridium's NTN Direct service to extend its own narrowband IoT coverage, the companies said Tuesday, with NTN Direct's commercial launch coming in 2026. Vodafone IoT CEO Erik Brenneis said that through direct-to-device satellite connectivity, "new and existing customers will benefit from truly global coverage -- meaning they can reliably connect their devices in corners of the world where they can't today."
Most cruise lines have moved to SpaceX's Starlink service for their maritime connectivity, Ookla said Monday. As for the Wi-Fi generations employed on cruise lines, the mix varies, it said. On Royal Caribbean, 49.7% of Speedtest samples were on Wi-Fi 6, followed by Holland America with 37.9%. Aboard MSC ships, 76.1% of Speedtest samples were on Wi-Fi 5, followed by Princess with 72%. Ookla said Starlink cruise line Wi-Fi download speeds work well for most applications, though the service doesn't keep up with Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi. The higher user density on cruise ships means there's more demand on their Wi-Fi networks than on an aircraft's, it noted.
SpaceX's Starlink service doesn't consistently meet performance goals for BEAD, the EU's Connecting Europe Broadband Fund program, or Australia's Statutory Infrastructure Provider regime, internet access researcher Isabel Suizo wrote last week in an Internet Society blog post. Suizo, a Carnegie Mellon computer science doctoral candidate, said a sampling of Starlink speeds by a research team at the university showed SpaceX's average download speeds exceeded 100 Mbps 24.7% of the time in the U.S, 13.6% in the EU and 42.2% in Australia. However, when looking at peak throughput measurements, most samples were above 100 Mbps, she noted. That might point to the need for performance goals to be reframed, given that the disparity between peak and average throughput is smaller with fiber connectivity, but low earth orbit networks' connectivity is inherently more volatile.
The way the U.S. licenses satellites is often "slow, bespoke, and overly burdensome," and it should instead use shot clocks and presume that non-geostationary orbit systems that follow the FCC's rules are in the public interest, the LEO Policy Working Group (LPWG) urged Thursday. Composed of satellite industry and regulatory experts, the group issued a report and series of recommendations aimed at better spectrum sharing and coexistence, helping foster competition and better employing low earth orbit (LEO) connectivity in federal broadband programs to aid in closing the digital divide.
The FCC shouldn’t grant SpaceX’s application to buy EchoStar’s spectrum licenses (see 2509080052) until SpaceX majority shareholder Elon Musk’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party is investigated, said public interest group Frequency Forward in a petition to deny filed Thursday. “Musk and the companies he controls have extensive, ongoing business arrangements with China,” the petition said. “These business dealings give China the power to influence and control the operations of his companies, including Starlink.”
Citing bad weather, United Launch Alliance said Tuesday that its Atlas V rocket, which will carry the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite, will launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Nov. 5 at the earliest. The satellite will more than double Viasat's bandwidth capacity and had been slated to launch this month (see 2509040003).
Lynk and Omnispace will merge into a company focused on direct-to-device service, they announced last week. SES will be a major strategic shareholder of the combined company, which will bring together Omnispace’s 60 MHz of globally coordinated S-band spectrum and Lynk's satellite technology platform, they said. SES is an investor in both companies. The deal is expected to close late this year or in early 2026, the companies added, with Lynk CEO Ramu Potarazu keeping the chief executive role and Omnispace CEO Ram Viswanathan becoming chief strategy officer.
European aerospace companies Airbus, Thales and Leonardo said Thursday they're planning a merger of their space units. The goal is to strengthen "Europe’s strategic autonomy in space" and "serve as the trusted partner for developing and implementing national sovereign space programs," they said. The joint entity "will pool, build and develop a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions" that include launch services. They expect the deal to be complete in 2027.