4 June 2000

Satcoms

Istanbul Conference Allocates More IMT-2000 Spectrum
The World Radiocommunication Conference in Istanbul has approved additional spectrum for IMT-2000 for the provision of wireless Internet access both terrestrially and via satellite.

IMT-2000 is intended to bring mobile multimedia telecommunications to a world-wide mass market based on a set of interfaces specified in the recently agreed ITU standard. The decision provides for a number of bands, available on a global basis for countries wishing to implement IMT-2000. Making use of existing mobile and mobile-satellite frequency allocations, the agreement also provides for a high degree of flexibility to allow operators to migrate towards IMT-2000 according to market and other national considerations.

The additional bands identified for the terrestrial component of IMT-2000 are: 806 - 960 MHz, 1710 - 1885 MHz and 2500 - 2690 MHz. The bands, which had initially been identified in 1992 (1885 - 2025 MHz and 2110 - 2200 MHz), and on the basis of which licensing has already been made or is under way in many parts of the world, remained unchanged. Around 100 licenses are expected to be awarded world-wide by 2002.

The conference identified the use of additional frequency bands for the satellite component of IMT-2000. This will afford an opportunity for satellite systems in these bands to provide IMT-2000 services, subject to the regulatory provisions applicable to the mobile-satellite service.

The conference also requested the ITU to conduct a number of studies on the potential sharing and co-ordination between the satellite and terrestrial components of IMT-2000, between IMT-2000 and other mobile-satellite services operating in the same bands, broadcasting-satellite (TV and sound), terrestrial mobile services and other high-density applications in other services such as point-to-multipoint communication and distribution systems.

Live Edgecasting By Satellite Demonstrated
InfoLibria Inc and Intelsat have successfully demonstrated Live Edgecasting, a process that allows service providers to host live, revenue-generating Web video events, via satellite.

InfoLibria is a leading provider of Internet infrastructure solutions that enable content distribution and delivery services, and Intelsat is a major international satellite operator. The demonstration illustrates how Intelsat's geostationary satellite system works with InfoLibria's content distribution systems to deliver live streaming media in near broadcast quality. In addition, the Edgecasting technology supports on-demand requests for archival footage and tracks consumer access for billing and accountability purposes. Multicasting multimedia over satellites provides an extremely cost-effective and secure content distribution option to content and service providers.

Live Edgecasting enables live video and audio to be uplinked to a satellite network in order to bypass the congested Internet backbone. By downlinking and serving this content through MediaMall, InfoLibria's award-winning streaming media system, service providers can serve original-quality streams from locations close to end users, resulting in a premium viewing experience and reduced bandwidth consumption on a network. InfoLibria can build multi-format systems to support both unicast and multicast feeds.

Live Edgecasting has several advantages over television broadcasting. Content providers are able to use Web technologies to track usage for billing purposes and to obtain information on customer behaviour. End users receive additional control over the viewing experience, including record and playback capabilities; on-screen, supplemental text content; and the ability to select a single camera view of pay-per-view event.

Orbcomm Maghreb Launches Full Moroccan Service
Orbcomm Maghreb SA has been awarded a licence to provide full commercial service in the Kingdom of Morocco. Orbcomm is the first public satellite network licensed to offer commercial service in Morocco.

Orbcomm's Moroccan Gateway Earth Station (GES) is also now operational and is Orbcomm's first GES on the continent of Africa. The Orbcomm Maghreb GES, which is linked to the Gateway Control Center in Italy operated by Orbcomm European licensee MCS Europe, will be used to route messages from the satellites to their intended recipients. In addition to serving the Moroccan region, the strategic position of Orbcomm Maghreb's GES will bolster Orbcomm's global network coverage in Europe, over the Atlantic Ocean and across Northwest Africa.

Orbcomm Maghreb plans to immediately market Orbcomm services to a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, transportation, marine, utility, security and fisheries. Current applications in development include utility meter-reading on behalf of the Office National d'Electricite; a maritime tracking and two-way communication application for the Office National des Peches; and an emergency response application for MIFA, a regional Yamaha distributor.

Shin Satellite to Open UUNet Gateway
Shin Satellite has signed an agreement with UUNET, the Internet division of MCI WorldCom Inc, to open a new international gateway.

The gateway will enable Shin Satellite to cater an increased demand for Internet access in Indochina and the Indian subcontinent.

CS Internet, Shin Satellite's Internet service provider (ISP) division, is a leading ISP in Thailand with a 70,000 subscribers base. Subscriber numbers are increasing rapidly and have nearly doubled in the last 5 months.

TRW Completes Development of Astrolink Processor Chip
TRW has completed development of the RH32S, a computer-on-a-chip for Astrolink satellite communications payloads. The RH32S, especially "hardened" to withstand the harsh radiation of space, is central to controlling the advanced digital processors on-board the satellites of Astrolink's global broadband telecommunications system.

TRW is building the communications payloads for Astrolink, which is scheduled to begin providing interactive broadband access internationally in 2003. The first five RH32S chips, completed on schedule, are now installed in development stations where they are being used to develop Astrolink applications software.

Full-scale production has begun on the chips that will go into the Astrolink payloads.

The TRW RH32S cuts down greatly on size, weight and power consumption of the Astrolink payload, factors especially important on-board satellites, where size and power are limited. The RH32S replaces a unit formerly requiring five chips packaged in a multichip module housing, reducing weight by 90 percent and power by 80 percent. The weight and power savings per payload are substantial because each Astrolink payload employs 16 RH32Ss. The silicon chips are complex digital processors, containing more than 5 million transistors each, and fabricated in the complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, process.

The 16 RH32Ss in each payload operate as building blocks of a distributed controller architecture that provides modularity and flexibility. Functions performed by the RH32Ss include allocation and control of payload resources, such as the modems and ATM switch queues, security and fault management and handling of the messages sent by Astrolink's Network Control Centers.

While the Astrolink RH32S runs proprietary application software, this software is being developed using commercial off-the-shelf software tools and runs on a commercial off-the-shelf operating system.

Earth Observation

GOES-11 Mothballed
Following its recent successful launch the GOES-11 weather satellite will be kept as an in orbit spare.

NASA would like to have the satellite in operation to help with the study of Atlantic hurricanes. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration policy is, however, to keep satellites that are not required immediately as in orbit spares to ensure the continuity of operational services when necessary.

Military Space

Lockheed, Hughes and TRW Team for Advanced EHF Contract
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Hughes Space and Communications and TRW have formed a National Team to build the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (Advanced EHF) system, the Department of Defense's next generation of highly secure communication satellites.

This follows the DoD's approval to end the previous Advanced EHF competition between one team headed by Lockheed Martin and TRW and another led by Hughes. On the new National Team, Lockheed Martin will serve as overall system integrator and prime contractor, issuing subcontracts to both Hughes and TRW. The roles and responsibilities of each team member will take advantage of their strengths in building highly secure military communications satellites. The MILSATCOM Program Office, located at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California., will manage the Advanced EHF contract and is the lead agency for ensuring the secure communications capabilities of this system are made available to the warfighter.

The Advanced EHF Program is the follow-on to the DoD's Milstar highly secure communication satellite program, which currently has two Milstar I spacecraft in orbit. Formation of the new team accelerates development of the new system by 18 months. The earlier deployment of Advanced EHF will help bridge the gap in military communication coverage caused by the loss of the third Milstar satellite, launched in 1999.

Under the National Team contract, the production phase of the program is scheduled to begin in April 2001, with the first of five satellites to be launched late in 2004. The estimated contract value of the Advanced EHF program is US$ 2.5 billion.

The fully operational Advanced EHF constellation will consist of four crosslinked satellites, providing coverage of the Earth from 65° N to 65° S. The fifth satellite built could be used as a spare or launched to provide additional capability to the envisioned constellation.

Hughes will lead the payload effort and will be responsible for payload integration, as well as production of RF electronics and phased array antennas. Advanced EHF satellites will provide 10 times greater total capacity and offer channel data rates six times higher than that of Milstar II communications satellites. The higher data rates permit transmission of tactical military communications such as real-time video, battlefield maps and targeting data. Advanced EHF adds new higher data rate modes to the low data rate and medium data rate modes of Milstar II satellites. The higher data rate modes will provide data rates up to 8.2 Mb/s to future Advanced EHF Army terminals. That rate is more than 150 times faster than the 56 kb/s modems of today's personal computers. Each Advanced EHF satellite employs more than 50 communications channels via multiple, simultaneous downlinks. For global communications, the Advanced EHF system uses inter-satellite crosslinks, eliminating the need to route messages via terrestrial systems.

Science

Compton Burns Up Over Pacific
NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory re-entered the Earth's atmosphere this morning, crashing into the Pacific as planned.

After a highly successful 9 year mission, NASA has deorbited the massive satellite, bringing it safely to Earth some 4,000 km south east of Hawaii in a remote area of the Pacific. The de-orbiting procedure began on May 30th with the first of four de-orbiting burns which were intended to nudge the satellite into lower and lower orbits. More than 6,000 kg of debris was expected to survive re-entry.

Manned Space

Shuttle Atlantis Returns From ISS Flight
On Monday the Shuttle Atlantis returned from a ten day mission refitting and repairing the International Space Station (ISS).

Following the mission, the ISS is now equipped with an upgraded electrical system following the replacement of 4 batteries, new fans, filters, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, a new antenna and a crane for future construction. The space station was also boosted to a higher orbit. ISS flight controllers report that the space station is functioning nominally.

The next launch to the ISS will be on July 8 when the Russian Service Module Zvezda will be launched by a proton rocket from Baikonur. Zvezda will dock with the ISS about two weeks after launch.

The next shuttle flight to the space station will be in September when Atlantis will return to prepare the newly arrived service module for use.

Technology

Orion 3 Rescue Rumours
The rumour mill reports that NASA is planning to rescue Orion 3 by attempting a lunar fly-by mission which would eventually leave it in geostationary orbit. The reality is that this is probably just a paper exercise.

Orion 3 was left in a useless 156 x 1369 km orbit after a failed Delta III launch in May 1999 with little chance of a rescue. Following the launch failure the satellite was declared a total loss and Loral Orion, the satellite's owners, used the insurance money (Orion 3 was fully insured) to buy capacity on Apstar 2R.

A lunar fly-by procedure would use Orion 3's stationkeeping thrusters to place it in a trajectory around the moon. Careful use of the moon's gravity would allow the satellite to be eventually placed in geostationary orbit.

This technique has been successfully tried before with Asiasat-3 (later renamed HGS-1 and then renamed again as PAS-22) which flew by the moon twice in 1998. The satellite was left in geostationary orbit at 60° W with inclination of greater than 7°.

Launch Vehicles

Astrium to Supply More Ariane 5 Equipment Bays
Arianespace has ordered twenty Ariane 5 vehicle equipment bays (VEB) from Astrium in a deal worth EUR 150 million. This P2 batch order covers three years of production, with the first VEB scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of 2001.

Astrium will deliver three types of equipment bays, to help Arianespace meet its objectives of a significant reduction in costs (over 35%), higher launcher performance, and extended multimission capability:

• 3 VEBs to extend the current series.
• 7 new VEBs adapted to Ariane 5's multiple orbits mission profile. These bays enable re-ignition of the engine powering the EPS storable propellant upper stage, and support operating time up to six hours, compared with less than one hour today.
• 10 VEBs for the new ESC-A cryogenic upper stage.

The Ariane 5 vehicle equipment bay handles all flight control and command tasks for the launcher. Flight control commands are calculated by the onboard computers and specialised electronics, based on speed and attitude information provided by the guidance systems. These computers also send all commands needed for launcher operation, such as engine ignition, stage separation and release of payloads. In addition, a telemetry link sends a continuous stream of data - up to 1 Mb/s - to the ground.

The functional electrical system is fully redundant: all equipment items have an identical backup. For the VEBs used on the storable propellant upper stage, a hydrazine thruster-based system ensures attitude control during the different flight phases. The vehicle equipment bay has a cylindrical structure measuring 5.4 metres in diameter, and 1.12 to 1.56 meters high, depending on the version used. Empty weight (without propellants) is from 1,000 to 1,400 kilograms.

Beal Returns to Guyana for Launch Site
Beal Aerospace, after checking out potential launch sites in the Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Cape Canaveral has now opted for its original choice of Guyana.

The Republic of Guyana, a former British colony, is well suited geographically to launching satellites because of its proximity to the equator, and is only a few hundred kilometres north of the Arianespace launch site at Kourou in French Guiana.

Beal intends to manufacture its rockets in Dallas, Texas and assemble them at the launch site in Guyana. The first launch is scheduled for the end of 2001.

The company has bought 26,000 acres of Guyana's rain forest for US$ 1 an acre to build its launch complex and will lease a further 75,000 acres at US$ 3 per acre per year. It will get a 99 year tax concession. During the three to five year construction phase of the project, Beal has promised to use 500 local workers and will employ 200 Guyanan residents once the facility is operational.

NASA's Air Breathing Rocket Test Successes
NASA and Rocketdyne engineers have just completed sixty minutes of testing of a revolutionary air breathing rocket motor and have successfully tested all of the motor's operational modes.

The air breathing rocket (rocket based, combined cycle engine) was developed by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, Alabama), Rocketdyne (Canoga Park, California), Aerojet (Sacramento, California) and Pennsylvania State University. The motor's ground tests were performed at the General Applied Sciences Laboratory (GASL) in Ronkonkoma, New York.

The project is intended to develop the technology for air breathing rocket engines which, it is hoped, will improve reliability and safety as well as reducing costs dramatically. They would enable spacecraft to be completely reusable with a turn around time of a few days. Since it would not be necessary to carry oxidiser for most of the powered period of flight spacecraft mass would be greatly reduced allowing launch and landing from conventional airport runways.

The engine operates in different modes at different phases of flight:

• during take off power would be provided by air augmentation rockets
• at twice the speed of sound these rockets are switched off and the engine uses atmospheric oxygen to burn cryogenic hydrogen fuel
• at about ten times the speed of sound the engine converts to a conventional rocket until the vehicle reaches orbit.

Telesat Picks Ariane 5 for Anik F2 Launch
Telesat Canada has placed a contract for the launch of Anik F2 in late 2002 with Arianespace.

Anik F2 is based on the Hughes Space and Communications HS 702 platform and will weigh about 5,900 kilograms at launch. It will be equipped with three communications bands consisting of 24 C band transponders, 32 Ku band transponders and an advanced Ka-band payload with 45 spot beams allowing digital communications between small terminals and one of six Internet-connected gateway stations. Coverage in all bands will be North America-wide.

Anik F2 will be positioned at 111° W with a service life in excess of 15 years.

Arianespace now has a backlog of 40 satellites to be launched.

Business

Amos 2 Bond Issue
Israeli company HLL, which is building the Amos 2 communications satellite, plans to raise 200 million new shekels (approx. US$ 50 million) from a bond issue this year.

HLL is also reported to be interested in acquiring the Amos 1 satellite from Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) after Amos 2 has been completed.

The bond issue is intended to help finance the completion and launching of the satellite, which is scheduled for 2002. The remainder of the financing will come from the four principal shareholders (Israel Aircraft Industries, a group of investors headed by Meir Amit, Gilat Communications and the H Mar-Mati group) and Bank Leumi, whose subsidiary Leumi and Co is managing the issue.

Amos 2 will offer 50% more capacity than Amos 1, in addition providing higher transponder powers, providing complete coverage of the Middle East.

Another Buyer Checks Out Iridium
New York-based Castle Harlan Inc, a prominent investment firm, has submitted a US$ 50 million proposal to the federal court overseeing the Iridium bankruptcy to acquire all of Iridium's assets. Castle Harlan would also take a shareholding in any successor entity to Iridium.

For the last few months, since a potential buy out by Craig McCaw's Eagle River group fell through, Motorola has kept the Iridium system operational but mothballed in the hope that a new buyer would emerge. Motorola is reported to be spending several million dollars per month maintaining the 66 satellite constellation in orbit and has set a deadline of the end of June for an acquisition. Motorola is not expected to make any investment in a new venture operating the Iridium satellites. The Castle Harlan proposal includes a monthly payment of US$ 900,000, to cover operational costs, which will be payable from when the court gives the deal the go ahead until the sale is completed.

Castle Harlan's proposal is to be reviewed at a hearing requested by Iridium on June 7th. The proposal also includes a 45 day due diligence period during which Castle Harlan can determine the viability of its business plan without obligation to proceed.

Comtech Acquires EFData
Comtech Telecommunications Corp has announced that it is to acquire the business of EFData, the satellite communications division of Adaptive Broadband Corporation for US$ 61.5 million cash.

Closing of the transaction is expected by June 30, 2000 subject to normal conditions, including review by antitrust regulatory authorities, Comtech board of directors approval and completion of satisfactory financing by Comtech.

EFData, which had revenues of US$ 92 million in the 12 months ended March 31, 2000, designs, develops and manufactures a wide range of satellite communications products for the transmission of voice, data, facsimile and video. EF Data is based in Tempe, Arizona, and will be combined with the Comtech Communications Corporation subsidiary, which also produces equipment used in satellite communications and is also based in Tempe.

Motorola Closes Satellite Division
Forbes magazine has reported that Motorola has lost its place as the prime contractor on Teledesic and actually has, in fact closed down its satellite communications division.

Motorola may continue in the project making consumer devices but would not take any other role.

Motorola joined the Teledesic project in 1998, putting up US$ 750 million for a 26% stake in the venture and displacing Boeing as the prime contractor. Over the next few months Motorola then slowly showed less interest in the project until finally Motorola stopped work until technical requirements were clarified.

Last July, Teledesic and Motorola reached a "System Agreement" which confirmed Motorola as prime contractor. However, the contract was contingent upon Teledesic's approval that the system meets its requirements following a final technical review period, which was expected to be completed in December 1999. This does not appear to have been the case.

Unofficial reports now indicate that Hughes Space and Communications (soon to be part of Boeing) will replace Motorola as the satellite manufacturer in a deal rumoured to be worth more than US$ 1 billion when Teledesic becomes integrated with ICO.

People

Teleglobe Appoints CFO
Teleglobe Inc has appointed Michael T. Boychuk as Chief Financial Officer for the company effective immediately.

Mr. Boychuk was previously Vice-President and Treasurer of Bell Canada and BCE Inc. He replaces Claude Seguin who will remain with Teleglobe Inc as a special advisor.

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