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Sat-na June 9th 1997
1
Sat-na
June, 9
1997
Arianespace Flight 97
EchoStar signs agreement with Telefonica
New RCA-brand Dish
Lockheed Martin and Intersputnik Venture
NDS wins $10 million contract
NEW MEMBER TO INMARSAT GROUP
Cancom Acquires Distribution Of WSBK
Landscape announces "Internet Inside"
Eutelsat and COM.NET
Baikonur prepares for Iridium launch
WB to provide loan guarantees for Sea Launch project.
Digital Radio Broadcasts
Skylight Satellite Network goes digital
SPAR Wins $3.2 Million Contract
Farrah Fawcett: All Of Me
Upcoming Launches
In Brief
Arianespace Flight 97
Arianespace successfully launched the INMARSAT-3F4
satellite for the international organisation INMARSAT and
INSAT-2D for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Both of these operators have been Ariane customers for more
than 15 years.
Flight 97 was carried out by an Ariane 44L, the most
powerful version of the European launcher with four liquid-
propellant strap-on boosters. This was the 67th Ariane 4
launched of the total of 96 ordered from the European space
industry.
Lift-off from the European Space Port in Kourou, French
Guiana, took place on Tuesday, June 3, at 8:20 PM local time
in Kourou
Provisional parameters at third stage injection into
geostationary transfer orbit were:
" Perigee: 199.7 km for a target of 199.6 km (+ 3
km)
" Apogee: 35,989 km for a target of 35,783 km (+
150 km)
" Inclination: 7.00 degrees for a target of 6.99 degrees
(+ 0.06 degrees).
INMARSAT-3F4 will provide mobile telecommunications
services in the Atlantic Ocean region. It weighed 1,999 kg
(4,398 lb.) at launch and provides a capacity of 150 30-Ghz
channels.
The InSat-2D has 23 high power transponders and two
exclusive facilities. The Mobile Satellite Service (MSS)
transponder will enable the Department of Telecommunications
to offer the Mobile Telephone Service over the Indian
Subcontinent by the end of July this year.
The MSS facility on-board InSat-2D, along with a
similar transponder on-board InSat-2C, will pick up radio
signals from the ground and transmit them back. This would
enable anybody with a portable briefcase-sized terminal to
make or receive voice calls and transmit fax and data from
anywhere in India.
The Broadcast Satellite Service (BSS) transponder will
be useful for television agencies to transmit images and
sound to their production centres even from the remotest
corner of the country. Located above the Maldives Islands,
it will serve the entire Indian subcontinent.
The next launch, Flight 96, is scheduled for June 25.
An Ariane 44P launch vehicle will be used to place into
orbit the INTELSAT 802 satellite for the International
Telecommunications Satellite Organisation. This will be the
15th INTELSAT satellite launched out of 18 launch contracts
awarded to the European launcher.
For reasons related to the allocation of launcher
components, the upcoming launch has been designated V 96.
EchoStar signs agreement with Telefonica
A subsidiary of Spain's Telefonica group of companies,
has selected EchoStar to supply digital set top boxes for
their upcoming satellite television service scheduled to
launch on HISPASAT this September throughout Spain.
In addition, EchoStar will license its proprietary
electronic programming guide for use in connection with the
digital receivers for DTS. With an initial order for 1997
of 100,000 digital set top boxes, the total value of the
transaction is over $40 million.
DTS chose to implement the same Nagra-Kudelski /DiviCom
Inc. combination used by EchoStar for the DTS conditional
access and compression systems.
New RCA-brand Dish
Small dish satellite
courtesy Thomson Consumer receivers may now have the
Electronics ability to receive local
television programs following
the development of a new 18-
inch satellite dish that also
contains an imbedded TV
antenna for reception of
local programs.
Following an 18-month
development program at
Thomson Consumer Electronics'
technology centre in
Indianapolis, a new advanced
RCA-brand Digital Satellite
System was developed for
introduction early next month
with the potential to expand
the versatility of the
Digital Satellite System.
The third generation of
RCA 18-inch satellite systems
includes three new models,
beginning with a suggested retail price of $449. Each new
system includes the multi-purpose antenna dish which is
designed to have the capability to receive one or more local
station signals when properly installed and adjusted.
Thomson's basic approach to the new reception
capabilities will be one of helping the dealer determine
local TV feasibility of the new system based on such factors
as the strength of the local broadcast signal, the distance
and direction of the local station's transmitter from a
consumer's home, and the location of the antenna dish. As
with any antenna the quality of the off-air signal delivered
by the new antenna dish is influenced by many factors.
Though some geographically dispersed tests of local TV
reception has indicated that homes located in urban areas
could receive some local television stations, the company
plans to take a conservative marketing approach with the new
antenna dish that essentially says, "This could work for
you."
Lockheed Martin and Intersputnik Venture
As expected and reported last week, Lockheed Martin's
Space & Strategic Missiles Sector and the Intersputnik
International Organisation of Space Communications have
formed a joint venture company to provide world-wide
communications services. The new company, Lockheed Martin
Intersputnik, Ltd., or LMI, will be headquartered in London
with a marketing office in Moscow.
LMI will provide a full range of satellite products and
services. The first satellite deployed will be Lockheed
Martin's A2100 on a Proton launch vehicle in late 1998.
Initially, LMI will provide broadcast, fixed
telecommunications and VSAT services to customers in Eastern
Europe, South Asia, Africa and the Commonwealth of
Independent States. These services will expand to include
direct-to-home video and audio, and mobile services to
customers world-wide.
NDS wins $10 million contract
NDS has received a $10 million order from the European
Broadcasting Union to supply MPEG-2 4:2:2 equipment which
will be implemented for digitisation of the EBU's internal
Eurovision transmission network. The digitisation will
increase the EBU's network capacity from seven TV channels
to over 20 and will incorporate 55 transmit and receive
earth stations.
Used for distributing and exchanging programmes among
the EBU's broadcaster members, the network covers the whole
of Europe from west to east and north to south and also
includes northern Africa and the Middle East. It uses
transponders on the Eutelsat II-F4 satellite.
NEW MEMBER TO INMARSAT GROUP
INMARSAT reports that the Marshall Islands has joined
the Inmarsat global mobile satellite organisation as its
80th member and will use Inmarsat satellite communications
to develop a stronger communications infrastructure
including enhancing the island's current telephone system
and HF radio inter-island communications.
Cancom Acquires Distribution Of WSBK
Cancom has acquired the satellite distribution rights
of the American superstation WSBK located in Boston. The
new satellite distribution company will be called BOSCOM.
Presently redistributed on G.E. Spacenet 3, BOSCOM will also
make WSBK available on Anik E2. WSBK, the third most watched
superstation in Canada, is an authorised superstation by the
CRTC.
Landscape announces a move and "Internet Inside"
The Landscape Channel is moving to a pan-European
satellite feed on the Orion 1 cable exclusive digital
satellite. Landscape is currently connected to 1.2 million
cable homes in the UK. Operating a languageless and
advertising free music television format. Landscape plans
distribution in all 31 European territories in the
satellite's footprint within twelve months.
Called the "Internet Inside" project Landscape and
Internet Service Providers will be supplying a free Usenet
news feed to any Landscape customer anywhere in Europe able
to receive the digital service.
Reception can be obtained using a number of different
products including a plug-in PC card. A number of major
manufacturers including Pace and Phillips will provide these
and it is anticipated that cards from at least twelve
different manufacturers will be in major stores like Dixons
and Curry's soon.
Eutelsat and COM.NET
EUTELSAT and COM.NET will provide access to the
Internet. It will be operational from summer 1997 and will
be commercialised by Telecom Italia. The equipment required
to receive the service consists of a DVB-MPEG2 card for your
PC and a 60 cm antenna which can be the same as the one
already used to receive television services. On the
transmission side a normal modem and telephone line are all
that are required.
Baikonur prepares for Iridium launch
The Baikonur cosmodrome is undergoing preparation for
the launch of seven Iridium satellites aboard a Proton
rocket on June 18. The launch is the second of eight
commercial launches of Proton rockets planned for this year.
Digital Radio Broadcasts
A group of chip vendors and consumer-electronics
companies met this week in Germany to hammer out a scheme
for what they hope will be the first successful deployments
of satellite-based digital-audio-broadcast (DAB) services,
according to a report published in CMP Media's EE Times
(http://www.eet.com).
The result could be that digital-radio transmissions to
Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Latin America and
Asia could begin as early as year-end 1998.
DAB is a scheme intended to do for radio what such
services as DSS, PrimeStar and Rupert Murdoch's Sky
operations have done for television: blanket large areas
with distinct broadcasts of multiple channels. Like with
these video services, DAB systems have the potential to be
used for ancillary data transmissions, such as paging or
information-subscription services.
Skylight Satellite Network goes digital
Wayne Pederson probably felt like having a ribbon-
cutting ceremony on May 15 to mark the great occasion.
However, it would have been more appropriate_and symbolic_to
have a "analog tape cutting ceremony" instead, in order to
mark that momentous day.
Why? Because May 15 was the day that Pederson and his
SkyLight Satellite Network told SpaceCom to turn off the
network's analog satellite feed...once and for all.
SkyLight didn't need it anymore, because the network and all
its 340 affiliates and translators were fully transitioned
to SpaceCom's Digital FM Squared technology.
SpaceCom began the transition process with SkyLight
back in February, with a digital simulcast of SkyLight's
programming alongside the existing analog satellite signal.
In March, Skylight began the process of delivering and
installing new Wegener digital audio receivers at each
affiliate location.
SPAR Wins $3.2 Million Contract
Spar Aerospace Limited has won a $3.2 million dollar
contract to supply France's Aerospatiale with two C-Band and
three Ku-Band antennas for the Thaicom 4 satellite.
Under the contract Spar Space Systems will design and
build antennas with highly shaped dual-polarisation offset
reflectors and centre-fed shaped reflectors.
Farrah Fawcett: All Of Me
The Farrah Fawcett pay-per-view special "Farrah
Fawcett: All Of Me." will premier on June 11, 1997 at 9:00
p.m. EDT/PDT.
The special will air on cable through Viewers Choice
and Request TV networks; via C-band satellite on Request TV
and TVN; and through domestic DBS satellite services
DIRECTV, DISH Network, PRIMESTAR and AlphaStar. The event
is also available to Canadian PPV customers through Viewers
Choice Canada and AlphaStar Canada.
Upcoming Launches
Next Atlas/Delta Launch Next Ariane Launch
Superbird C -- July 22, 1997 Intelsat 802 --June 25, 1997
In Brief
" Via Digital will purchase approximately 50,000 Nokia
Mediamaster digital decoders for its launch of the 70
channel Spanish service in September. The new company was
formed by Spain's main broadcasters: Telefonica, Radio
Television Espaniola, Mexico's Televisa and others.
" Beijing Telecom is gearing up its satellite television
receiving and transmission facilities to ensure the success
of its live telecast of celebrations in the Chinese capital
for Hong Kong's return. The celebrations around July 1 will
be broadcast via 13 satellites to the whole world using 13
fixed earth stations and nine telecast vehicles.
" Shaw Communications Inc. and Star Choice have completed
the previously reported merger of their direct-to-home
satellite television operations. As reported in March, the
companies agreed to merge the operations through the merger
of Star Choice Television Network and Shaw's HomeStar
Services Inc. unit.
" E.U. antitrust chief Karel Van Miert has been asked to
look at the bid for a digital terrestrial TV broadcasting
license of a consortium that includes BKyB by British
authorities.
" To attract subscribers to DF-1, Kirch has started
offering new pricing, including renting of the receiver ,
new channels and implemented a new marketing campaign.
" The World Bank has approved two guarantees totalling
$100 million to Sea Launch. Sea launch is the joint venture
of Boeing Commercial Space Corporation, the Russian missile
and space corporation Energiya, the Norwegian firm of
Kvakner and the Ukrainian company Yuzhnoye.
Sat-na is sponsored by TELE-satelit International
http://www.tele-satellit.com
and produced by Satellite Journal International
http://members.aol.com/satjournal
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(c) Sat-na 1997
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