February 13 News Items

SES Selects Loral to Provide Satellite for Echostar (Source: SES)
SES has signed a contract with Loral for the procurement of QuetzSat-1, a high-power communications satellite with coverage of Mexico, North America and Central America. QuetzSat-1, procured by SES Satellite Leasing Limited in the Isle of Man, is the fourth satellite project for the two companies. QuetzSat-1 is fully contracted to a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp. and will be used in part by Dish Mexico, an EchoStar joint venture, for DTH services in Mexico. It is further expected that EchoStar and its Satellite Services division will provide capacity on QuetzSat-1 to a subsidiary of DISH Network Corp. for use in connection with its U.S. DTH business. (2/12)

SES Delivers Another Year of Solid Growth in 2008 (Source: SES)
SES S.A., the pre-eminent satellite operator worldwide, reports financial results for calendar 2008. Recurring revenue rose 6.0% to EUR 1,620.1 million. Reported revenue rose 1.2% to EUR 1,630.3 million. Operating profit rose to EUR 625.1 million, 2.0% ahead of the prior year. Transponder utilization increased to 79.0%. Contract backlog remained stable at EUR 5.8 billion. (2/13)

Broadband Money Survives House-Senate Stimulus Negotiations (Source: Space News)
The $789 billion-plus economic stimulus package approved by a congressional conference committee contains $7.2 billion dollars to bring broadband Internet service to rural communities and other underserved areas, a potential boon for satellite providers specialized in connecting the hardest-to-reach customers to the information superhighway. (2/13)

Intelsat Preparing to Order Three New Satellites (Source: Space News)
Satellite-fleet operator Intelsat, in an unexpected move, will be ordering three new telecommunications satellites this year to provide extra assurance that it will be able to replace in-orbit satellites before they fail, Intelsat officials said. Contract awards are expected in the coming weeks. (2/13)

Could Point-to-Point Space Tourism Be in Hawaii's Future? (Source: KHON)
The next big thing in tourism could offer out-of-this-world experiences for Hawaii visitors. It seems like science fiction, but the reality could be just a few years away - launching into orbit from Hawaii. "Space tourism is the next generation of humankind reaching for the stars," said Jim Crisafulli, of the State Office Aerospace Development. Passengers get the thrill of weightlessness and can see a third of the planet from way up there.

"Having a flight from Hawaii to California maybe take 1 hour or 90 minutes, and a flight from Hawaii to Japan could take less than an hour," said Sen. Will Espero. Right now, the trips pencil out at about $200,000 a piece including a week of flight training in Hawaii. But five to seven years down the road, companies say their space planes will hold 30 to 100 passengers at once bringing prices as low as $5,000. "I know that's still a little pricey, but to be able to experience space in the process is just tremendous and we think there will be a fairly significant market for this," said Crisafulli.

Four separate mainland companies that are developing space flights have solicited the state about launching and landing here. Hawaii first needs to apply for a pricey spaceport license from the federal aviation administration. Several other states are ahead of Hawaii on that, but no one has done a takeoff yet. Supporters say the first flights could take off by 2011. (2/13)

Weldon: No Overlap Between NASA and Alaska Spaceport Services (Source: Kodiak Daily Mirror)
David Weldon, the former Republican Florida congressman from 1998 through 2008 and a new member of the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation board of directors, said Wednesday he sees the AADC playing a vital role in national security and would like to see defense launches grow in number. He added, however, that he will continue to pursue commercial customers for the corporation within the market’s stiff competition. “I have followed the AADC from its inception and I’ve always been interested for a variety of reasons,” Weldon said, adding that he has worked with AADC CEO Dale Nash in the past. “Anything I can do to help Alaska is an honor and a privilege,” Weldon said.

Weldon said his interests and involvement with NASA and Cape Canaveral space projects would not conflict with those of Alaska’s because the two do not compete: Florida does equatorial launches and AADC’s Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC) does polar launches. Another new AADC board member, Alaska state Rep. Alan Austerman, was asked if the AADC should keep re-investing its earnings or share them with the state. Austerman said: “At some point in time it needs to share its profits back to the state.” (2/13)

Alabama Rocket Builder Cutting Jobs (Source: Birmingham News)
United Launch Alliance, a Decatur space-rocket builder, has said it plans to eliminate 26 jobs, or about 4 percent of its 635-worker payroll. The job cuts will take effect next week, the company has told the Alabama State Dislocated Worker Unit. They are part of a nationwide payroll trim by United Launch, a California-based joint-venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The joint-venture employs about 4,200 people nationwide. The Decatur plant is one of several nationwide that play a part in making Atlas and Delta rockets that launch satellites into space. (2/13)

Space: Insurance's New Frontier (Source: Forbes)
Imagine an object the size of a pea with the potential to destroy a satellite, and you'll get a sense of the potential new risks posed by Wednesday's satellite collision. The scale of the damage is still being assessed, but so far the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center has identified 600 pieces of debris greater than the size of a tennis ball that were thrown off in the crash (pieces smaller than that are untrackable). Traveling at around 5.0 miles a second, an object much smaller could do a lot of damage, particularly when colliding with one coming from the opposite direction at a similar speed.

"The issue of debris has been hugely underestimated for a long time," said Sima Adhya, senior technical officer at risk analysis firm Sciemus. "It’s a massive problem that the space industry needs to get a grip on." Most commercial insured satellites operate in geosynchronous orbit, around 22,400 miles above the Earth, where there is hardly any debris, and onboard control ensures that collision risks are small. For these satellites, the main risks covered tend to be mechanical troubles, or a failure at launch. Wednesday's collision occurred much closer to Earth, at a level where the majority of satellites, belonging to research institutes or governments, aren't covered by insurance. (2/13)

New Russian Cargo Ship Docks at Space Station (Source: Space.com)
An unmanned Russian space freighter docked at the International Space Station early Friday with a fresh delivery of chocolate and coffee for the orbital outpost's three-astronaut crew. The automated cargo ship Progress 32 docked smoothly at a berth on the station's Earth-facing Pirs docking compartment. "Today's a special day," space station commander Michael Fincke, of NASA, called down to Mission Control after Progress 32's arrival. "Thank you." (2/13)

Five Rockets Ready to Launch at Alaska's Poker Flat Research Range (Source: UAF)
Scientists are now at Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks waiting for acceptable conditions for the launch of five NASA sounding rockets that will gather information for two scientific experiments. The launch window for the firing of these rockets opened Feb. 12, 2009, and extends until March 3, 2009. Four of the rockets are part of a mission to study turbulence in the upper atmosphere. They will release trimethyl aluminum, which creates a glowing vapor trail, nearly 87 miles up into the night sky. Scientists on the ground will use sensitive cameras to track the trails from Poker Flat, Fort Yukon and Coldfoot. (2/13)

Google's Vint Cerf, NASA Develop Interplanetary Network (Source: Media Post)
Google Evangelist Vint Cerf could see his dream of creating an interplanetary network, an extension of the Internet, become reality by the end of this year. NASA offered Cerf and colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) an opportunity to upload the protocol to a spacecraft in orbit. The group, which designed the protocol after discovering that ordinary Internet TCP rules would not work, also has uploaded the standard to the Space Station. They needed a protocol that would handle the long transmission delay between planets or spacecrafts. The project to create an interplanetary network had been a dream for about a dozen years. "People thought I was joking," he said. "I was honestly fascinated by the possibility of creating a richer network environment for space exploration with point-to-point radio waves." (2/13)

First Lockheed Martin-Built Milstar Satellite Marks 15 Years On Orbit (Source: Lockheed Martin)
The first U.S. Air Force Milstar communications satellite, built by a Lockheed Martin team, has achieved 15 years of on-orbit operations. Five years beyond its original design life, the satellite is 100 percent mission capable and will continue providing secure, reliable and robust communications to U.S. and Allied Forces around the globe for years to come. Launched aboard a Titan IV rocket from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 7, 1994, the first Milstar satellite has since been successfully repositioned five times to maximize the system’s capabilities and coverage. The satellite has provided over 125,000 hours of communications service with more than 99.5 percent availability to date. (2/13)

$1 Billion for NASA Called a Victory (Source: Florida Today)
Congressional leaders are expected to include $1 billion for NASA in the final version of the economic stimulus package. NASA supporters consider the $1 billion figure a victory. Even though the Senate version of the stimulus package included $1.3 billion for the agency, the measure approved by the House allocated only $600 million. Of the $1 billion, $400 million could go toward climate control and Earth science research, and $150 million could go toward aeronautics. Another $400 million could go toward space exploration -- presumably toward accelerating work on Constellation, the successor to the shuttle program. (2/13)