November 2014

Allseas’ Pieter Schelte vessel during sea trials. Photo: Speedcast [Via Satellite 11-07-2014] Allseas Group, a provider of offshore pipeline installation and subsea construction, has awarded a satellite service contract to SpeedCast International, a global satellite telecommunications service provider. The deal covers Allseas’ flagship vessel, the Pieter Schelte, which took to the seas for the first…

Inmarsat 5 F1 and Inmarsat 5 F2 in a Boeing facility. Photo: Inmarsat [Via Satellite 11-07-2014] Inmarsat has completed construction of the final four Satellite Access Stations (SAS) for its Global Xpress (GX) fleet. This represents a significant milestone in the rollout of GX, Inmarsat’s global high-speed broadband Ka-band network, which is scheduled for global…

SES NSS 806 satellite C-band coverage. Photo: SES [Via Satellite 11-07-2014] ANATEL, the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency, has approved SES’ NSS 806 satellite for use at the 48 degree west orbital position recently awarded at auction to SES. The satellite will provide capacity for Brazil and Latin America. NSS 806 provides C- and Ku-band capacity…

Eutelsat 7B Ku-band Africa downlink coverage. Photo: Eutelsat [Via Satellite 11-07-2014] Muvi TV, a commercial broadcaster and satellite TV platform in Zambia, is set to expand its business throughout the African continent. The company has renewed and expanded its satellite capacity requirements from Stellar, a German play-out center and satellite uplink facility that leases high-power…

Pacific Drilling’s Pacific Bora drillship. Photo: Pacific Drilling. Via Satellite is reporting from the OilComm 2014 event. [Houston, Texas 11-06-2014] As the oil and gas industry continues to see greater digitization, video is gradually transforming from something that is nice to have to an imperative necessity for a growing number of applications. During the “Present and…

H.E. Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director general of EIAST, Dr. Leland Blank, dean of the College of Engineering at AUS, and Dr. Mohamed El-Trahuni, associate dean and director CEN graduate prog., College of Engineering at AUS. Photo: EIAST [Via Satellite 11-06-2014] The Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) and the American University of…

Skynet 5A being installed on the payload interface adapter for its Ariane 5 launch. Photo: Arianespace [Via Satellite 11-06-2014] Airbus Defence and Space has selected Hughes Network Systems to develop a new ultra-compact, lightweight terminal for a service named XeBRA. The new terminal measures 8 x 25.8 x 23 centimeters, and will weigh less than…

Artist rendering of the Jabiru 1 satellite being built on Lockheed Martin’s A2100 platform. Photo: Lockheed Martin [Via Satellite 11-06-2014] NewSat has selected General Dynamics C4 Systems Satcom Technologies to manufacture four 13.2-meter antennas for the Jabiru satellite program. Three of the antennas will be in Ka band, while the fourth will be Ku band for…

Gilat’s SkyEdge 2C platform. Photo: Gilat [Via Satellite 11-06-2014] Hispasat and Gilat have signed two new European Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for their Virtual Network Operations (VNO) program. Euskaltel of the Spanish autonomous community “Basque Country,” and NOS, previously known as ZON Optimus, of Portugal are the new customers. Euskaltel previously ordered Gilat’s SkyEdge 2-c…

CDM 625A modem. Photo: Comtech [Via Satellite 11-06-2014] Comtech EF Data has augmented several of its satellite modems to optimize the devices for use with High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems. The CDM-760 Advanced High-Speed Trunking Modem now includes an integrated High-Speed Packet Processor for high-end users, that can process more than 190,000 packets per second…