'Palmbeach 3', a contemporary art fair, takes place 14-15 January in Florida.
'Palmbeach 3', a contemporary art fair, takes place 14-15 January in Florida, and is offering buyers the opportunity to experience weightless flight of the kind that trainee astronauts receive (left), accompanied by their art collections. Those who buy the 'Art in-space' package will be whisked into the sky by...

Space insurance running out of capacity?
Last year was the second worst ever for the space insurance business. There are hints that space programmes may one day have trouble finding sufficient capacity Generali Global's biennial space insurance conference, held this year in Rome where it attracted over 500 delegates from 32 countries, always...

Comsat market poised for new take-off? Doom and gloom are giving way to cautious optimism, based on expected growth in high-definition TV and broadband.
At the recent comsat industry get-together and overview in Paris, Euroconsult president Marc Giget pointed to turnovers of $2.36 billion in the satellite business in 2002, plus $1.43 billion in launchers, $7.6 billion for the operators, and a whopping $80 billion for the service sector. However, in...

Best warranties for a risky business: some risk carriers like Hiscox are providing a broader range of coverage. (Marsh & Hiscox Syndicates).
Europe is by far the largest provider of space insurance, both in terms of number of players, and in terms of underwriting capacity, i.e. the maximum amount of money risk carriers can commit to any one project. In 2002, 75% of the worldwide capacity is provided by...

Leading insurance services for the space industry: the insurers already provide additional services and should soon also offer better financing terms. (Marsh & Hiscox Syndicates).
For more than 30 years, the European space industry has been keen to develop state of the art technologies in all fields of space activities. Similarly, the European space insurers have always been extremely pro-active in offering appropriate and innovative services to the clients of this economic sector. ...

Faster and cheaper ways to build satellites.
The emergence of "constellations" of satellite systems that are to use lower, non-geostationary orbits has triggered the growth of quantity production techniques in the satellite industry. The common perception is that satellites are expensive. The considered reaction, of course, should be expensive compared with what? If one is contemplating...

Comsats: can HDTV save the day? While all eyes have been focused on multimedia applications, the kick-start for Ka-band is coming from high-definition TV.
Today's telecommunications satellite market is the focus of two opposing trends--the transition from analogue to digital technology is slowing capacity demand, but this is being compensated by the arrival of high-definition TV (HDTV), which requires four times as much bandwidth as the current standard. This explains why direct broadcast...

Comsat market pickup ahead: the first timid signs of growth can be seen again in the telecommunications market.
According to Euroconsult's new research report "World Satellite Communications & Broadcasting Markets Survey--Market Forecasts for 2014", fixed service satellite (FSS) revenues amounted to $7.05 billion in 2004, 60% of which was accounted for by the top three operators, with the rest split between the remaining 30. The...

Satellite builders under fire.
The year just ended cannot be described as one of the happiest for the commercial satellite industry In one very literal sense, satellites failed to come under deadly fire in mid-November. The Leonid meteor shower, an annual event which reaches a peak of activity every 33 years,...

Orbital Reports Second Quarter 2001 Financial Results.
- Company Completes Two Non-Core Business Unit Sales, Reduces Debt By $150 Million in Last Three Months - DULLES, Va., Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) today announced financial results for the second quarter of 2001, reporting net income of...