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Experts reportedly said the launch would have been possible on July 2 or 3, but they decided on July 9 to have more time for repair work. They said that there had been a problem with "the booster's direction system."
The Zenit-2 is to launch the Russian Resurs-O satellite as well as five satellites for Australia, Chile, Germany, Israel and Thailand.
The October looks something like that for Arianespace now:
Flight 111 on October 3 with Sirius 3 and Afristar (Ariane 44L);
Flight 503 (=112) on October 13 with the Atmospheric Re-entry Demonstrator and a mock-up communications satellite [or possibly what's left of Eutelsat W1] (Ariane 5);
Flight 113 on October 23 with Eutelsat W2 and Skynet 4E.
Directors and chief designers of major companies in the space sector on Friday sent a letter outlining the critical financial situation around Mir to Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko. Itar-Tass quoted an unnamed "high space official" as saying they were not going to threaten the government with an uncontrollable descent of the 130-tonne spacecraft back to Earth, adding that loyalty was better than "blackmail."
SES said in a statement that after thorough market analysis NSAB has concluded that the slower than expected roll-out of digital satellite television in Scandinavia will lead to a delay in the demand for transponder capacity in the Nordic market. In other words, they don't need it and pass it to SES for a year which will position it at 28.2 degrees East. The statement added that "In addition the agreement opens the possibility for back-up capacity to be provided by SES to NSAB."
SES said Sirius 3 would provide back-up capacity to the Astra 2A satellite, which is expected to be launched into the orbital location of 28.2 degrees East on August 20. It would also "make available additional transponder capacity in order to meet the increasing demand of broadcasting customers targeting the UK and Irish markets." Sirius 3, a Hughes HS-376 HP (High Power) model, has 15 Ku-band transponders.
"Upon completion of the lease to SES and in no event later than October 1st, 1999, Sirius 3 will be transferred to NSAB's orbital position in 5° East where it will replace Sirius 1 and offer additional capacity for digital TV and multimedia services," SES said.
Currently, Astra 1D is at 28.2 degrees East to ensure the official launch of BSkyB's digital TV package next autumn. It is likely to return to 19.2 degrees East once Sirius 3 is up. The announcement of the Sirius 3 deal supports the view that SES' contract with BSkyB calls for backup capacity at 28.2 degrees East. BSkyB has leased 14 transponders on Astra 2A.
NSAB is owned and operated by two state-run Swedish companies, Swedish Space Corporation (37.5%) and Teracom AB (37.5%) with public company Tele Danmark A/S holding the balance.
A channel in this context obviously means something like an eighth of a transponder as Nilesat distributes digitally compressed channels. The TV channel to be broadcast by Iraq will be called "Baghdad," weekl Al-Iqtissadi reported.
In related news, a Baghdad newspaper said that the government ban on satellite dishes [by no means an Iraqi speciality] might be lifted.
An Optus Vision spokesman said the provisional liquidation would not affect customers programming as Sports Vision would continue broadcasting until a new venture was decided.
Sports Vision was set up as an exclusive sports channel for Optus using programming bought from Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd's (PBL) Nine Network, The Seven Network Ltd and Walt Disney Co's ESPN Inc.
Seven holds a 30 percent stake in Sports Vision, ESPN holds 25 percent, Optus holds 25 percent and PBL owns 20 percent.
Optus Vision and its major cable competitor Foxtel, a joint venture between Keith Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Ltd and Telstra Corp Ltd, are estimated to have jointly lost more than A$1 billion with pay-TV in Australia.
Telstra already has 45 Megabits per second of backbone satellite capacity between the United States and Sydney in operation. The new service is currently undergoing customer trials prior to full commercial launch. The use of international satellite capacity to deliver Internet access services has the potential to significantly reduce costs for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connected to Telstra, the company said in a press release.
Telstra will not use satellite in both directions because of the additional propagation delay introduced by the extra satellite hop. Said Telstra's General Manager for Internet Services, John Rolland: "We expect this service to suit non-interactive applications such as Newsfeeds, electronic mail, streamed media and caching."
He continued that "It is not expected to have as much appeal to users of real time interactive applications such as World Wide Web and File Transfer Protocol due to the higher delays experienced over international satellite than fibre cables."
Telstra: http://www.telstra.com.au/
The result is what anybody with some common sense has already known: there is no convincing evidence whatsoever that extraterrestrial beings had visited Earth. But, of course, there are a few things that so for cannot be explained.
So what? Thousands of years ago, humans invented gods because they had no better explanation for thunderstorms, because they did not know why the sun set every evening and rose every morning, etc. It would have been better for them had they learnt how to live with the inexplicable.
There's one completely undisputed fact in the whole discussion anyway: The whole UFO industry down here on Earth is a multi-billion dollar business, and that's why UFOs are here to stay for a long, long time. That's something that really deserves scientific scrutiny--not by astronomers and physicists but rather by psychologists and economists.
by Dr Sarmaz
To date, reports Mother Jones contributing writer Ken Silverstein, Murdoch has offered to donate US$100 million to fund investments in minority-owned stations. But the group is reportedly holding out for more.
The deal could lead to some increase in broadcast ownership by minorities, but it could also accelerate the monopoly of media ownership. Mark Crispin Miller, who teaches media studies at New York University and is director of the Project on Media Ownership, says "It's a Faustian bargain. It offers Murdoch a 'PC' camouflage to extend his influence still further. It will ultimately make little difference if he makes a few loans to minority owners."
Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/
DirecTV has pledged free tuners and dishes to about 100,000 subscribers of its partner satellite broadcaster SkyPort, which will terminate its analogue service at the end of September. The Japanese monthly magazine "Foresight" reported in its June issue that about 30,000 to 40,000 viewers who were given free DirecTV tuners and dish sets chose instead to join SkyPerfecTV by purchasing hardware costing nearly 60,000 yen.
DirecTV, which currently offers 88 channels, has said its viewership topped 100,000 in the middle of May, five months after it launched its service. SkyPerfecTV, which offers 171 channels, says it has boosted its viewership by more than 100,000 in the past two months alone. It claims it has attracted 731,000 subscribers since its launch in late 1996.
The ITC said it will ban the pay-TV industry's practice of guaranteeing TV channels distribution as part of large subscription packages. On the other hand a lot of people are only taking BSkyB's 40-channel "Big Basic" package because it's the only way to subscribe to premium channel, ITC chief executive Peter Rogers told a press conference. He continued that this has to stop.
As of September 30, the ITC will require that viewers be allowed to buy through to premium channels from any basic package, though some restrictions will apply.
Cable companies as well as BSkyB have welcomed the ITC's decision, with BSkyB adding that the decision would give a boost to its digital satellite TV services. Niche channels that are part of the Big Basic package, such as Mirror Groups Live TV, threatened to sue the ITC if the regulator tried to force changes to its existing contracts.
The ITC said it would impose different deadlines for existing channels that were exclusive to one platform, such as Live TV which said it was delighted with its perceived exemption from the ITCs ban but still opposed the overall ruling in principle.
Bertelsmann chairman Mark Wössner told a German radio station today that his company was aiming at setting up a "strategic partnership" with KRM where both companies would hold 50 percent of Vox each. KRM already holds 49.9 percent of Vox.
Bertelmann's subsidiary CLT-Ufa owns a 24.9 percent stake in Vox, and so does France's Canal Plus which probably will sell its stake to Bertelsmann--and not to KRM. Despite being the larger shareholder, Murdoch cannot outvote Bertelsmann on investment decisions because any decision requires an 80 percent majority.
One night, a police officer was stalking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible violations of the driving-under-the-influence laws.
At closing time, he saw a fellow stumble out of the bar, trip on the curb, and try his keys on five different cars, dropping them several times before he found his. Then, he sat in the front seat fumbling around with his keys for several minutes. In the meantime, everyone left the bar drove off.
Finally, he started his engine and began to pull away.
The police officer was waiting for him. He stopped the driver, read him his rights and administered the Breathalyzer test. [Just curious: it didn't happen to be a Dräger breathalyzer?] The results showed a reading of 0.0. The puzzled officer demanded to know how that could be.
The driver replied, "Tonight, I'm the designated decoy."
The famous Dräger Alcotest: http://www.draeger.com/german/st/alcotest/index.htm [German]
Dräger in space: http://www.draeger.com/english/aerospace/sp.htm
[Sat-ND is in no way affiliated with Dräger. Even though the company's main operation is located at my home town, I just couldn't care less.]
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