Roger Lanctot

With war on the fringe of the Mediterranean and on NATO's eastern flank, the thinking vis-a-vis the role of the satellite industry is rapidly coalescing around the role of public and specifically defense funding and Europe's widening space gap with the rest of the world. The space gap is increasingly looking existential. At SmallSat Europe, the takeaway, as reported by Satnews, is that Europe is stepping up to close that gap.

We all know orbital space is becoming crowded, but is that something we need to be worried about? Kayhan Space's Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Araz Feyzi thinks so. In his words: "the launch curve is going vertical."

The emergence of direct-to-device satellite communications has set off a wave of investments, partnerships, new service announcements, and spectrum grabs in spite of the bandwidth limitations of the technology. Advocates are talking about near universal wireless coverage with the prospect, in the future, of broadband speeds.