# Satellite Insights Weekly
> Independent weekly analysis of the satellite communications sector. LEO broadband, GEO operators, direct-to-device, and sovereign connectivity — no hype.
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## Pages
- [About Satellite Insights Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/about.md) - Independent weekly analysis of the satellite communications sector: LEO, GEO, direct-to-device, ground segment, and sovereign connectivity. No hype.
- [Advisory](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/advisory.md) - Independent buyer-side and investor-side satellite advisory from a 40-year commercial satcom operator. Project engagements, diligence support, procurement and multi-orbit strategy.
- [Commissioned Research](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/research.md) - Independent satellite communications research, commissioned and scoped to the decision it supports. Figures verified live, sources named, assumptions stated.

## Posts
- [Why Is Airbus Selling the Factory That Built OneWeb?](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/why-is-airbus-selling-the-factory-that-built-oneweb.md) - Airbus is reviewing a sale of its Merritt Island plant after moving 440 OneWeb satellites to Toulouse. Who buys a two-a-day line that lost its customer?
- [The Ka-Band Role Reversal: SpaceX Moves to Reopen the ViaSat-3 F2 Grant](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/spacex-viasat-3-f2-grant-ka-band-role-reversal.md) - SpaceX petitions the FCC to deny ViaSat-3 F2 market access in NGSO-primary Ka-band, filed on day 30 of the recon window. The role reversal, explained.
- [Somebody Just Ordered Three GEO Satellites. Nobody Will Say Who.](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/intuitive-machines-geo-order-c-band.md) - An undisclosed customer committed more than $600 million for three geostationary communications satellites on the former Maxar 1300 bus. The timing points at the FCC upper C-band clearing, and the anonymity is the most interesting part.
- [Grain's Buyers Need a Rule Change, Not Just a Waiver](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/grains-buyers-need-a-rule-change-not-just-a-waiver.md) - Bids for Grain Management's $6 billion 800 megahertz portfolio go to Grain, not the FCC, and close 5 November. The Commission will let AST SpaceMobile test in this band tomorrow, but has created no way for anyone to sell commercial service in it.
- [Satellites Are the Cheap Part: Sizing SpaceX's Mobile Network](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/spacexs-site-problem.md) - SpaceX's mobile network is not limited by spectrum or satellites. It needs about 40,000 cell sites, and that buys a mid-market carrier.
- [What a Satellite-Connected Car Will Actually Do in 2029](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/what-a-satellite-connected-car-will-actually-do-in-2029.md) - A Viasat/5GAA survey says 75% of drivers will pay for satellite in the car. What they'll actually get in 2029 is an emergency message.
- [Telesat Stopped Saying Refinance](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/telesat-q2-2026-consensual-outcome.md) - Telesat's Q2 call changed the December vocabulary. A US$120 million loan at a non-guarantor subsidiary and what a consensual outcome means for creditors.
- [IRIS² Got Bigger and 48 Percent More Expensive. Europe Signed Anyway. — Deep Dive](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/iris2-rendezvous-1-europe-signed-anyway.md) - Rendezvous 1 repriced Europe's sovereign constellation. What the €15.6 billion agreement changes for SES, Eutelsat and buyers of sovereign capacity.
- [Five Exits From a Band Nobody Flew](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/ngso-milestone-clock.md) - Eutelsat OneWeb surrendered its V-band grant in April 2025. Five operators have now left the FCC's first V-band processing round.
- [Telesat's Best Day in 57 Years Went to the Entity the Lenders Cannot Reach](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/telesat-leo-arctic-contract-lenders-cannot-reach.md) - Canada committed up to C$2.7 billion on Tuesday morning. The counterparty was Telesat LEO ULC, which is the part of the group the term lenders are in court trying to get back.
- [Telesat Says Its Cash Will Not Cover December. Ottawa Is Still Funding Lightspeed](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/telesat-says-its-cash-will-not-cover-december-ottawa-is-still-funding-lightspeed.md) - Telesat GEO told its auditors that the cash will not cover December. Ten months earlier, 62 percent of the Lightspeed equity moved outside the reach of the lenders who are now suing to get it back. Ottawa is still funding the entity on the protected side of that wall.
- [Who Gets Bought Next in Satellite M&A. One Seller Has Already Told You](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/satcom-ma-who-gets-bought-next.md) - iDirect, Hughes, Iridium, Comtech. Who sells next in satellite M&A, why ground infrastructure clears at a fraction of what spectrum does, and the constraint that now kills more deals than antitrust ever has.
- [Every Constellation Is Now a Starship Derivative](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/every-constellation-is-now-a-starship-derivative.md) - Launch capacity, not capital or spectrum, now gates every satellite constellation. Why the whole market's schedule has become a Starship derivative.
- [Poland Bought a Gateway, Not Just Satellites - Deep Dive](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/poland-bought-a-gateway-not-just-satellites-deep-dive.md) - Poland is the first EU member state to fund a national module inside IRIS². The Warsaw gateway, not the twelve satellites, is what buys sovereignty.
- [AST SpaceMobile's 2027 D2D Delay — Analysis](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/ast-spacemobiles-2027-d2d-delay-analysis.md) - AST SpaceMobile pushed direct-to-device service to 2027 and raised a billion dollars. Here is what the delay changes, and what it quietly does not.
- [Everyone is watching DISH go bankrupt. Watch Hughes instead - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/everyone-is-watching-dish-go-bankrupt-watch-hughes-instead.md) - DISH's bankruptcy is the headline. Hughes' August 1 debt maturity is the enterprise story with a date on it. Why it matters for JUPITER capacity.
- [Is iDirect a Smart Buy?](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/is-idirect-a-smart-buy.md) - ST Engineering marked its ground-segment champion to a floor and opened a strategic review. Here's what a buyer would actually get — and what it's worth.
- [Scale vs. Sovereignty - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/scale-vs-sovereignty-weekly-deep-dive.md) - A newly public SpaceX filed for a 100,000-satellite Gen3 constellation. Japan, Indonesia, Nepal and the UAE answered with sovereign connectivity.
- [1.7 Million Satellites: Astronomers vs the FCC — Analysis](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/1-7-million-satellites-astronomers-vs-the-fcc-analysis.md) - Companies have filed to launch ~1.7 million satellites. A new ESO study urges the FCC to cap the total at 100,000. What's at stake for the night sky.
- [The Week Consolidation Stopped Being a Forecast - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/the-week-consolidation-stopped-being-a-forecast.md) - SES–Intelsat, Amazon–Globalstar, Rocket Lab–Iridium, SpaceX–EchoStar: ~$40B of satcom consolidation, and who gets absorbed next.
- [Bought, Not Built: Why Rocket Lab's Iridium Deal Isn't the Next Starlink](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/bought-not-built-why-rocket-labs-iridium-deal-isnt-the-next-starlink.md) - Iridium deal looks like SpaceX's Starlink playbook. It isn't — a flywheel is built, not bought. Here's what the acquisition actually buys.
- [The Independent and Regional Satellite Ground-Segment Layer: A 2026 Map](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/the-independent-and-regional-satellite-ground-segment-layer-a-2026-map.md) - Who owns the teleports and GSaaS networks outside the majors: Arqiva, Speedcast, KSAT, Leaf Space, ATLAS, Goonhilly. Plus why France killed the Eutelsat-EQT carve-out.
- [The Multi-Orbit Mirage: How GEO Operators Are Retiring the Fleet They Can't Fill](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/the-multi-orbit-mirage-how-geo-operators-are-retiring-the-fleet-they-cant-fill.md) - An operator’s read on the GEO retreat: SES and Eutelsat are cancelling satellites and writing down assets while multi-orbit partnerships grab the headlines. Why a LEO deal retains the customer but never fills the transponder — and why the geostationary arc may be about to empty out.
- [The Capital Event — SpaceX's IPO and the closing of the D2D frontier - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/the-capital-event-spacexs-ipo-and-the-closing-of-the-d2d-frontier.md) - SpaceX priced the largest IPO ever this week — but the same five trading days quietly hardened direct-to-device into a three-operator, spectrum-defined oligopoly. Verified analysis on SpaceX, Starlink, AST SpaceMobile, Globalstar, Amazon and Jio.
- [One Ground-Segment Sale Cleared. France Blocked the Other.](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/ground-segment-in-the-space-economy.md) - Comtech is selling its ground business to Gilat. Eutelsat tried the same carve-out and France blocked it. Why the ground layer is strategic.
- [India's Sovereignty Standoff — Jio vs. Starlink: Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/indias-sovereignty-standoff-jio-vs-starlink-deep-dive-weekly.md) - SATELLITE INSIGHTS JUNE 21, 2026 · EDITION 005 Sections Market overview Breaking news LEO broadband GEO / HEO operators D2D & mobile services Sovereignty & geopolitics Analyst signals Sources Google Alerts (Glenn's inbox) Via Satellite · Payload Space SpaceNews · Reuters · CNBC Yahoo Finance · Tech…
- [Most of Us Are Jeep Owners Who Never Leave Pavement. That's Who Direct-to-Cell Is Built For](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/most-of-us-are-jeep-owners-who-never-leave-pavement-thats-who-direct-to-cell-is-built-for.md) - Analysis The short answer The physics What ships today Where the money is What would change it Independent satellite communications intelligence. Sources: peer-reviewed measurement, operator filings, market trackers. Analysis · Direct-to-Device Most of us are Jeep owners who never leave pavement. T…
- [Russia's Rassvet Constellation: What 16 Satellites Actually Gets You](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/russias-rassvet-constellation-what-16-satellites-actually-gets-you.md) - On June 13, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia "now operates its own low-Earth orbit satellite system comparable to SpaceX's Starlink." The system in question has 15 functioning satellites in orbit. Starlink has over 10,000. The gap between those two numbers — and the urgency behind Russia's effo…
- [The Reversal: Gilat Buys the Comtech Business That Once Tried to Buy It](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/the-reversal-gilat-buys-the-comtech-business-that-once-tried-to-buy-it.md) - Weekly Intelligence Deal Analysis · Ground Segment M&A The Reversal: Gilat Buys the Comtech Business That Once Tried to Buy It Six years after Comtech moved to swallow Gilat whole, a healthier Gilat is carving the crown jewel out of a distressed Comtech for less than a third of the old price. The l…
- [SpaceX Goes Public: SPCX Debuts on Nasdaq - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/weekly-insights-june-15-2026.md) - JUNE 14, 2026 · EDITION 004 Sections Market overview Breaking news LEO broadband GEO / HEO operators D2D & mobile services Sovereignty & geopolitics Analyst signals Sources Google Alerts (Glenn's inbox) Via Satellite · Payload Space SpaceNews · Reuters · Bloomberg Ars Technica · TechSpot TNW · The…
- [SpaceX IPO](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/spacex-ipo.md) - SpaceX prices its IPO at $135/share — the largest in history, and a turning point for the satellite industry's competitive map What happened On June 3, SpaceX filed its S-1/A with the SEC, setting the IPO price at $135 per share across 555.6 million shares — a $75 billion raise at a $1.77 trillion…
- [SpaceX Prices the Largest IPO in History - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/weekly-insights-june-7-2026-2.md) - Weekly intelligence Satellite Communications Industry JUNE 7, 2026 · EDITION 003 Sections Market overview Breaking news SpaceX IPO deep dive LEO broadband GEO / HEO operators D2D & mobile services Sovereignty & geopolitics Analyst signals Sources Google Alerts (Glenn's inbox) Via Satellite Reuters…
- [SES Cancels Two GEO Satellites - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/weekly-insights-may-23-2026.md) - Weekly intelligence Satellite Communications Industry MAY 23, 2026 · EDITION 001 Sections Market overview Breaking news LEO broadband GEO / HEO operators D2D & mobile services Sovereignty & geopolitics Analyst signals Primary sources Via Satellite SES / Intelsat filings Viasat investor relations AS…
- [Blue Origin New Glenn Explodes on the Pad - Deep Dive Weekly](https://www.satelliteinsights.com/weekly-insights-may-31-2026.md) - Weekly intelligence Satellite Communications Industry MAY 31, 2026 · EDITION 002 Sections Market overview Breaking news LEO broadband GEO / HEO operators D2D & mobile services Sovereignty & geopolitics Analyst signals Sources Google Alerts (Glenn's inbox) Via Satellite SpaceX S-1 (SEC filing) Viasa…

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