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Sat-ND, 09.06.1998





Sat-ND, 09.06.1998

Sat-ND, 09.06.98
Is this the real world?

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Contents

SATELLITES
Ikonos 1 delayed
France, Russia in satellite deal
Orbital to build VisionStar GEO satellites
Number of satellite launches to increase--report
Spin-2 imagery available
LAW & ORDER
EU clears French satellite business deal
U.S.-Argentine satellite agreement
Atom bombs: yes; satellite TV: no
BUSINESS
Motorola to fire 10 percent of employees
CHANNELS
Colombian TV network ready for World Cup '98
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"They weren't looking"
FEEDBACK
Wrong number





BURP!

This is once again a "what happened over the past few days" issue. I expected this for tomorrow but actually I finished my work earlier than expected so I can annoy all my readers with this udderly [moo!] redundant and pretty ignorant so-called newsletter until further notice.

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SATELLITES

Ikonos 1 delayed

Space Imaging said in a press release that the launch of its Ikonos 1, previously scheduled for late June, has moved to later this year. The delay was a result of the decision to perform additional testing of the satellite system before launching it into space, the company added.

Ikonos 1 is the first satellite of its kind to take pictures of the Earth at levels of detail previously unavailable to commercial users. "We're taking additional measures to ensure 100 percent mission success, with both the launch and the achievement of a world-class imaging capability," said John Copple, Space Imaging's chief executive officer. "Further testing is a necessary precaution to assure our customers that imagery collected by Ikonos will be of the highest quality."

Ikonos 1 is being built by Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space in Sunnyvale, California. It will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard an Athena II rocket. Ikonos 2, an identical twin to Ikonos 1, is also scheduled to launch by the end of this year. It will enable Space Imaging to offer imagery twice as frequently as with Ikonos 1.

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France, Russia in satellite deal

Alcatel and Aerospatiale of France and NPO-PM have signed a contract to supply the Russian space agency and the state telecommunications committee with three Ekspress-K telecommunications satellites.

The deal is estimated to be worth US$550 million. Alcatel and Aerospatiale said the three Ekspress-K satellites would be at least five times more powerful than those currently in service [which still isn't too much, by the way] and would transmit telephone calls, fax and data throughout Russia. They would enable all sectors of the Russian economy to enjoy the same communications standard as the western world.

The contracts were signed during a visit by the new Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko to Paris. During his stay, France and Russia were also discussing the possibility of launching Russian space rockets from the European Space Centre in French Guiana which is currently used for Ariane launches.

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Orbital to build VisionStar GEO satellites

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that VisionStar, Inc. has awarded it a contract for two geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) communications satellites and launch services, valued at approximately US$260 million. VisionStar, a private company based in New York City, is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to offer broadband communications services. VisionStar controls a geostationary orbital slot at 113 degrees West longitude.

VisionStar selected Orbital's proposal based on the satellite's high-performance characteristics and its lower manufacturing, launch and acquisition costs compared to satellites offered by competitors. The initial design concept for the VisionStar programme calls for a satellite in the 2,000 kilogram-class with 30 Ka-band broadcast transponders. Under the contract, Orbital's major responsibilities will be to design and manufacture the initial satellite, begin work on a second spacecraft platform and procure launch services aboard a commercial rocket in the class of an Ariane 4 or 5 for a shared launch, or a Delta III for a single payload mission.

Orbital is a US$600 million space and information systems company with over 4,000 employees and operations in eight states and several international locations. It's got its ability to build small GEO satellites from taking over CTA, Inc. last August.

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Number of satellite launches to increase--report

Is this the age of LEO satellites, small or big? Not yet--satellites get larger and larger, and the number of GEO satellites has risen dramatically within less than ten years. A study by the Aerospace Research Center (ARC,) a non-profit group that monitors business trends in the aviation and space industries, says this won't change even in the LEO satellite age.

Between 1989 and 1992, just 15 (fifteen) GEO satellites were launched, by the way all much smaller and lighter than those we know nowadays. The report predicts that between 1997 and 2010 GEO launches will be 33 each year.

However, there will be a new market for LEO launches which is expected to average 20 (usually multiple) launches a year for the next decade, the ARC study predicts.

The ARC also examined the current market and concluded that Europe's Arianespace still is market leader with just under half of the world's market for commercial launches. The order books of the established players, however, look more or less the same: Arianespace 43 satellites, Boeing Delta II 42, Lockheed Martin 47 (26 for their Atlas, 21 for Russia's Proton which is marketed by Lockheed.) The Sea Launch project has 18 satellites on order for launch, the Chinese Long March, which according to a proposal by the House of Representatives may be banned from launching U.S.-built satellites, has a backlog of 16 satellites. [Please note that these numbers may not be too accurate as they quite obviously change frequently.]

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Spin-2 imagery available

Aerial Images, Inc. and Sovinformsputnik, a branch of the Russian Space Agency, announced the commercial availability of new Spin-2 data. This film-based imagery, collected during a recent Russian Kosmos satellite mission and digitally processed by Kodak Earth Imaging, provides the most up-to-date, high-resolution satellite imagery ever made commercially available.

The name of the mission actually was Kosmos 2349, but not only does Spin-2 sound a bit better, it even means something: Space Information, 2 meters resolution.

The availability of this data results from an agreement between Aerial Images and Sovinformsputnik. An international team managed the remote sensing satellite mission that was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in February 1998 and recovered in April of the same year.

Aerial Images and Sovinformsputnik have planned two additional satellite missions during each of the next two years to complete the imaging of the United States and major population centres around the globe.

Spin-2: http://www.spin-2.com/

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LAW & ORDER

EU clears French satellite business deal

The European Commission has cleared, with minor conditions, a deal under which French companies Alcatel, Thomson-CSF and Aerospatiale will pool their satellite businesses in a newly-created company by the name of Societe Commune de Satellites (SCS,) or in English: Joint Satellite Company.

The European Union's executive body said in a statement that it was concerned that a subsidiary of Thomson, Thomson Tubes Electroniques (TTE), had a dominant position in the market for travelling waves tubes which still are used in most satellites' transponders. [As far as I know, and I may be wrong as usual, Orion 1 is one of the exceptions as transistor amplifiers are used there. The high linearity of those amplifiers was probably one of the reasons why the spacecraft was--at least initially--marketed as the "digital satellite."]

Anyway, the companies involved in the deal had proposed undertakings to meet these worries, the Commission said. They agreed not to transfer control of TTE's travelling waves tubes business to SCS without the Commission's approval within the next five years .

"For these reasons, the Commission has decided not to oppose the notified transaction and to declare it compatible with the common market, subject to the full compliance by the parties with the undertakings proposed," the Commission's statement added.

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U.S.-Argentine satellite agreement

According to the U.S. State Department, the USA and Argentina signed a bilateral agreement allowing satellite operators to provide direct-to-home television and other satellite broadcast services to and from both markets.

Satellite providers must win approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and Argentina's Comite Federal de Radiofusion, or Comfer, to be able to operate under the so-called reciprocity agreement.

The agreement will "provide significant benefits for U.S. and Argentine consumers in the form of lower prices, improved service quality and more innovative service options," according to the State Department statement.

Argentina is the second country to sign such an agreement with the U.S., following a similar U.S.-Mexico deal signed in 1996.

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Atom bombs: yes; satellite TV: no

The current Indian nationalist Hindu government is, according to Information Minister Sushma Swaraj ("Ms. Genghis Khan"--Sat-ND, 19.04.98,) concerned about the "social menace" and "cultural pollution" from satellite television networks. The minister said she was considering legislation to promote traditional Indian values instead.

Currently, there is a ban on DTH satellite reception in the Ku-band in India that was imposed by the previous government, mainly to keep Keith Rupert Murdoch's Star TV from offering such services. Nonetheless Star TV can be received via satellite in the C-band and via cable networks, so far reaching just a Western-educated middle class.

Traditionalists fear that foreign satellite networks could undermine the Indian culture by promoting decadence and sexual promiscuity. While this can hardly be denied, it remains to be defined what that actually means. According to Ms Genghis Khan, it's not just the usual blend of sex and violence in fictional U.S. TV productions.

Swaraj's record during a short period as Information Minister back in 1996 was quite impressive. Within less than a fortnight, she announced a ban on "salacious" (immoral) advertisements on state-run television, stopped an AIDS-related chat show on government-controlled radio and outlawed condom advertisements. Reportedly, she even called for a crackdown on women news announcers with short hair.

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BUSINESS

Motorola to fire 10 percent of employees

Motorola, maybe the company with the largest number of proposed satellite systems, in a statement gave a dim outlook of the immediate future: "Second-quarter 1998 earnings, excluding special items, are expected to be well below the expectations of the investment community as a result of deteriorating demand and global pricing pressure." As a consequence, the company will sack 15,000 of its 150,000 staff world-wide within just 12 months.

Motorola, Inc. said it will implement "a comprehensive series of manufacturing consolidations, cost reductions and restructuring steps to improve financial performance."

Christopher B. Galvin, chief executive officer, said, "While we very much regret the impact this will have on certain of our employees, we must adjust our production capacity to the reality of current business conditions and reduce costs to improve overall financial performance."

The company also announced the following actions:

--Consolidation of manufacturing operations throughout the company, with emphasis on the Semiconductor Products and Messaging, Information and Media segments.

--Exit of additional non-strategic, poorly performing businesses.

--Write-down of assets, the value of which has become impaired, either as a result of current business conditions or business portfolio decisions.

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CHANNELS

Colombian TV network ready for World Cup '98

Andrew Corporation is supplying and installing a major broadcast system in Colombia. The first phase of the system, for RCN-TV (Radio Cadena Nacional) Bogota, Colombia, consists of an uplink hub in Bogota and 20 remote receiver sites covering the main cities. RCN-TV is one of Colombia's two newly-formed, national radio and television networks.

For a special reason, the installation of the system had to be completed by the end of May. RCN-TV has the shared Colombian rights for broadcasting the World Cup '98 football [soccer] tournament. Colombia's first round match against Romania is on 15 June 1998. "The goal of broadcasting Colombia's World Cup soccer matches, in a nation where soccer is the major sport, is clear motivation for having the new installation up and ready for its May 31st 1998 start date," said Mr. Ricardo Londono, President of RCN TV.

Phase one of the broadcast system contract, worth US$1.4 million, includes an uplink hub in Bogota that comprises several Andrew Corporation C-Band Earth Station Antennas mounted on the roof of RCN's TV production facilities. Countrywide coverage is ensured by a network of 20 remote, receive-only sites across Colombia, each of which in the first phase have an Andrew 3.6-meter Earth Station Antenna. The two-port receive antennas are circularly polarised to enable use of Intelsat, the primary satellite system used for the distribution of the RCN-TV network.

Andrew Corporation: http://www.andrew.com/

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

"They weren't looking"

Why did the fleet of highly sophisticated U.S. spy satellites fail to predict India's nuclear tests? Some Indian papers are still highly amused.

"Seems they weren't looking ... When the BJP government came to power in March, there had been a flurry of concern in the U.S., because of the BJP's declared intention of adding nuclear weapons to India's arsenal. But the BJP government told them not to worry. So they didn't."

Sudhanshu Ranade in 'The Hindu,' June 6, 1998

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FEEDBACK

Wrong number

Alain Frizon wrote: "There is one mistake in your 03.06.98 issue. The number of satellites for the SkyBridge system was 64 and not 48 as mentioned in your text.

"Accordingly, SkyBridge adds 16 satellites, not 32." Alain is right, of course. Thank you very much for the correction!

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Copyright 1998, Peter C. Klanowski, pck@LyNet.De. All rights reserved. Peter C Klanowski shall not be liable for errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
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