More than 43,000 satellites should launch by 2035, averaging 12 satellites a day, and that surge should drive a $665 billion satellite manufacturing and launch services market, Novaspace said Tuesday. The size of the market will be largely fueled by mega constellations, defense demand and rapid launch technology innovation. Five mega constellations will account for 66% of all satellites launched between 2025 and 2034, Novaspace added.
The second flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket should be later this month or in early November, with a mission of sending a NASA satellite into orbit around Mars, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said Friday at a tech conference in Italy. The company is also working on a hydrogen-powered lunar lander for a moon mission "in a few years," as well as conducting R&D to make solar cells from lunar material, he said. Bezos predicted that solar-powered data centers would be built and operated in space within 10 to 20 years.
With U.S. Bankruptcy Court having entered a formal order approving Ligado's comprehensive Chapter 11 organization plan, the company emailed us this week that it and AST SpaceMobile will next file applications with regulators in the coming weeks about AST leasing Ligado's L-band spectrum. Once those applications are approved, Ligado would emerge from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, it said.
Northrop Grumman's Space Logistics subsidiary is seeking FCC approval for telemetry and commanding operations for its MRV-1 robotic spacecraft when it conducts satellite servicing missions in and around geostationary orbit. In an FCC Space Bureau application Tuesday, Space Logistics said MRV-1 is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2026. MRV-1 will attach propulsion augmentation mission-extension pods onto client satellites, lengthening the fuel life of those satellites, the company said.
Russia looks to have its own version of SpaceX's Starlink constellation with Rassvet, Eurospace economist Pierre Lionnet wrote Wednesday. Six of the planned 900 Rassvet satellites are in orbit, with startup Byuro 1440 having apparently secured 20 Soyuz launches to deploy an additional 300 or so, he said. Lionnet said B1440 is claiming comparable performance to Starlink for fixed and mobile service, with up to 1 Gbps speed and low latency.
Satellite builder Maxar Space Systems has rebranded as Lanteris, it said Wednesday. Its satellite imagery business, Maxar Intelligence, also rebranded as Vantor.
AST SpaceMobile, which currently has five satellites in orbit, wrote Tuesday on X that its sixth BlueBird satellite is assembled and being shipped to India for launch by the Indian Space Research Organisation. BlueBird 7 is also expected to ship to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launch site in Florida later this month, it said, and BlueBirds 8-16 "are in various stages of production, with launches planned every 1-2 months on average during 2025 and 2026."
SpaceX's planned purchase of 50 MHz of EchoStar spectrum will change the way SES has been managing spectrum, CEO Adel Al-Saleh told us Wednesday night during a company event in Washington. SES now needs to figure out "how do we solve our spectrum requirements differently?" he said. That entails more partnerships and more discussions with governments about getting landing rights, Al-Saleh said, adding that landing rights are as important as the amount of L- and S-band spectrum a satellite operator has available to it.
AST SpaceMobile's ability to meet its goals for deployment and start its direct-to-device service relies largely on the availability of New Glenn rockets, space finance group Mach33 wrote Wednesday. AST has said it hopes to have 45-60 of its Block-2 satellites operational by the end of 2026 and offer intermittent U.S. service in late 2025, Mach33 said, adding that each of Blue Origin's New Glenn rockets would carry six to eight Block-2 satellites. It said that in a worst-case scenario, AST would have to rely on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for launches, but Falcon 9 is already in heavy demand, with flight slots booked years out.
In light of the streamlined earth station licensing requirements that the FCC adopted in August (see 2508070037), its Space Bureau gave guidance Monday on adding a point of communication for an earth station license. In a public notice in docket 22-411, the bureau explained how licensees should identify that they're filing to add a point of communication, how pending applications can use the new procedures, and the form of content of the notices to add a point of communication.