Tag: GEO
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Commercial GEO Satellite Orders Rebound to 14 in 2026 as C-Band Transition Drives Fleet Renewal
Commercial geostationary communications satellite orders reached 14 spacecraft through September 21, up from 10 during all of 2025 and the highest annual total since 2020, according to market intelligence firm Novaspace. The recovery is being driven partly by satellite operators preparing for another U.S. C-band spectrum transition while replacing aging broadcast and connectivity assets. The…
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How High and How Inclined Should a Satellite Fly? How Orbital Altitude and Inclination Are Determined
Why do some satellites skim relatively close to Earth and complete an orbit in just over 90 minutes, while others remain above the equator and appear motionless in the sky? And why do some Earth observation satellites designed for near-global coverage deliberately use “retrograde” orbits with inclinations greater than 90 degrees? The answer lies in…
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Intuitive Machines’ Maxar Acquisition Gains Momentum With $600 Million Satellite Order and Orbital Data Center Ambitions
Intuitive Machines’ decision to acquire the former Maxar satellite manufacturing business is beginning to look less like a bet on traditional spacecraft production and more like a strategy to build a vertically integrated space infrastructure company. The clearest evidence came in August 2026, when Intuitive Machines disclosed that it had secured a commercial contract worth…
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Viasat Taps Rocket Lab to Build Anti-Jam GEO Satellite for Space Force Tactical Comms Program
The selection follows a prime contract Viasat won on May 22, 2026 to deliver one of the first small, maneuverable geosynchronous Earth orbit satellites for the PTS-G constellation. That initial production award, known as Swarm 1, covers manufacturing, integration and test, launch, and on-orbit checkout of the mini-GEO satellite system. Viasat’s government space team, within…
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Astranis Introduces GEO Space Domain Awareness and Maneuverability Platform
Space is now a contested domain. Geosynchronous orbit and other high orbits have immense strategic value, and countries like China are building spacecraft capable of approaching, inspecting and interfering with other nations’ satellites. The infrastructure that connects, informs, and protects the world sits in an environment prone to conflict. Astranis has announced Perceptor, a new…
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Eutelsat’s OneWeb LEO Revenue Jumps 69.5 Percent, Now a Quarter of Group Sales
The results follow the formal completion of the Eutelsat and OneWeb combination in September 2023. By pairing geostationary high-throughput satellites with the OneWeb LEO constellation, Eutelsat has positioned itself as a multi-orbit operator competing directly against non-geostationary broadband providers including Starlink and Project Kuiper. While traditional GEO broadcast services face pressure from video cord-cutting, the…
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Mapex AI Expands Government and International Geospatial Projects
Mapex AI Private Limited, a geospatial technology company, had expanded its operations internationally by delivering geospatial solutions that processed spatial data for analysis. The Company had developed expertise in delivering GIS-based Master Planning, Land Information Systems, Property Tax Solutions, Utility Mapping, Digital Twins, Navigation, High-Precision Surveys, Enterprise GIS and Geospatial Data Infrastructure to support India’s…
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Arianespace to Launch MTG-I2 Weather Satellite on Ariane 62
On August 27 2026, Arianespace will launch the MTG-I2 meteorological satellite with the Ariane 62 configuration from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The mission is expected to last approximately 36 minutes from lift-off to satellite separation. The mission MTG-I2 will mark the fourth Ariane 6 launch of the year and the first to a geostationary…
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Lightning Hit Long March-3B 30 Seconds After Liftoff
Did the Long March-3B Survive a Lightning Strike at Liftoff? A Long March-3B rocket absorbed a lightning strike approximately 30 seconds after liftoff from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center on July 23, 2026 — and still delivered its payload to geostationary orbit (GEO) as planned. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) confirmed the…
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Zenno Astronautics Advances Supertorquer for Spacecraft Control Technology
Zenno Astronautics is developing the Z01 Supertorquer, a superconducting spacecraft control technology designed to provide fuel-free, fully autonomous attitude control and satellite positioning by interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. Built on the company’s proprietary high-temperature superconducting magnet platform, the system is intended to deliver strong magnetic control authority for missions operating in Low Earth Orbit…