Oil price slips on growing Covid-19 restrictions in China January 22, 2021 Oil prices fell today, weighed down by a build in US crude inventories and worries that new pandemic restrictions in China will curb fuel demand in the world's biggest oil importer
It’s game over for Alphabet’s Loon balloon broadband adventure January 22, 2021 Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said last night it will shut down its high-altitude broadband connectivity venture Loon. The announcement is at odds with its recent successful endeavours. Loon raised $125m from a SoftBank unit in 2019, and in April 2020 it launched the first balloons to provide commercial connectivity service to Kenyans following [...]
Elon Musk to turn oil rigs into floating SpaceX launchpads January 21, 2021 It’s usual practice for astronauts to splashdown in the water on their return from space, but up until now they’ve at least been able to take off from solid ground. However, this could all be about to change, after it was reported that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has bought two oil rigs to be converted [...]
Elon Musk overtakes Jeff Bezos to become world’s richest person January 7, 2021 Tesla's share price has driven Elon Musk's net worth even higher to topple Amazon boss Jeff Bezos from the top spot of world's richest person
Need a way out of recession? Look to the stars November 23, 2020 “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” These words by President John F. Kennedy are as important today as they were [...]
Satellite firm Oneweb relaunched after UK government bailout November 20, 2020 Troubled satellite firm Oneweb has formally emerged from bankruptcy after it was rescued from collapse by the UK government and Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal. The low earth orbit satellite firm today said it has left Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is now targeting a return to flight on 17 December. It comes after the [...]
Lockheed Martin to launch satellites from Shetland Islands October 22, 2020 The government has approved Lockheed Martin’s plans to move its satellite launch operations to the Shetland Islands. The decision is a major step forward in plans to build a spaceport on the archipelago to support the country’s commercial space ambitions. It is hoped that the Shetland Space Centre will support 605 jobs in Scotland by [...]
New wealth to be made and lives to be saved by democratising space October 16, 2020 Many of us forget that a large portion of our daily lives and activities are based around technology and data that originated from space applications. These range from influencing how the crops you consume yield to the visualizations your favorite artist uses during their concert. With the Space market set to reach a trillion dollars [...]
Shooting for the stars: The case for a CANZUK space agency September 3, 2020 The British government knows three things for certain about space. It’s big. It’s cold. It’s expensive. For a small country, the scale of the challenge is daunting — and lonely. Not long ago, the United Kingdom had access to the joint space initiatives of the European Union such as the Galileo program, a global navigation [...]
SpaceX receives $2bn boost in latest funding round August 18, 2020 Elon Musk’s SpaceX has raised a further $1.9bn (£1.4bn) in funding, a regulatory filing on Tuesday revealed. It raises the equity value of the billionaire’s private rocket company to $46bn, Bloomberg reported ahead of the funding round last week. It is the largest single fundraising round conducted by SpaceX yet, according to PitchBook data. It [...]