World of Satellite-News Updates

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Top Satellite Lawyer Assesses the Market
March 26, 2013
A commercial partnership between an FSS and MSS operator could happen “sooner rather than later” as the talk of convergence between the two sectors gathers pace. This is the opinion of Maury Mechanick, a telecoms/satellite lawyer at White & Case and one of the top legal experts in the satellite industry.

“We clearly are on a path of greater convergence between FSS and MSS service offerings, as the services offered are increasingly competitive with one another. Indeed, the only true differentiator between FSS and MSS service providers may be the particular frequency bands that each set of service providers utilizes,” Mechanick told SatelliteTODAY.com. “Moreover, particularly with Inmarsat’s movement into Ka-band via its Global Xpress offering, even that distinction is fading away. Without making a particular prediction, there is certainly no reason why an opportunistic commercial partnership between an FSS operator and an MSS could not occur sooner rather than later.”

With SATELLITE 2013 just finished, a number of talking points have emerged such as the state of the launch services market, and the future for High Throughput Satellites (HTS). The launch services market, in particular, is in an intriguing position right now. “Sea Launch is definitely in a precarious situation. While it did have a few successful launches after coming out of bankruptcy, the recent launch failure is big and, if nothing else, further raises tough questions about quality control on Russian-built launchers,” Mechanick said. “Should Sea Launch not be able to bounce back, this would represent a major concern for the satellite industry about supply and competition among launch services providers. SpaceX’s emergence of a credible alternative notwithstanding, the number of suppliers remains small, and it continues to be unlikely that U.S. manufactured satellites – or non-U.S. manufactured satellites with U.S. components – will be allowed to use Long March for the foreseeable future.”

Like many speakers at SATELLITE 2013, Mechanick is confident that the future looks good for HTS. “The demand for ubiquitous broadband connectivity will simply continue to explode, and there is no way that can be achieved without significant involvement of the satellite industry, with HTS, particularly at Ka-band, leading the way,” he said.

One of the other trends at SATELLITE 2013 was a vision to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. Mechanick also has optimism that the industry is in good shape, both in terms of regional opportunities, as well as applications. “To be sure, Latin America, Asia and Africa all continue to be attractive growth markets for satellites, as each of those markets is underserved in one respect or another. I would not, however, limit growth prospects solely to those geographic markets, as a combination of device-driven demand for additional broadband capabilities and for ubiquity of coverage can fuel additional satellite growth in all geographic markets,” he added.

 

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Arabsat, My-HD Media Announce Strategic Partnership Agreement During CABSAT 2013
March 26, 2013
During its first participation at the CABSAT 2013 conference, My-HD Media, a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region television platform that offers a single viewing card solution for High Definition (HD) channels, announced a long-term strategic partnership with Arabsat. Under the agreement, Arabsat will expand the reach of My-HD Media’s bouquet of channels to more than 170 million viewers in more than 80 countries across the MENA region and beyond.

“The main objective from our successful alliance with My-HD Media will provide a commercially viable, mass market ready, end-to-end distribution platform to the broadcasters on Arabsat. My-HD Media will allow broadcasters to capture additional HD business across MENA. At the same time we are further expanding Arabsat’s HD reach and HD leadership in the market,” Khalid Balkheyour, president and CEO of Arabsat, said on a statement.

 

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Satcom Direct Selects Exinda for High-Speed In-Flight Connectivity Product
March 26, 2013
Satcom Direct, a developer of satellite communications solutions for corporate and military aircraft, has selected WAN optimization and network control solutions provider Exinda’s Mobile platform to be integrated into its first hardware product, the Satcom Direct Router (SDR).

Acting as a Wi-Fi access point on an airplane, the SDR will use the Exinda Mobile platform to improve the consistency and response time of Internet applications, giving passengers an improved in-flight connectivity experience.

"Executives, government officials and business professionals continue to spend a large amount of time in the air, so the need to constantly be connected is greater than ever,” Curt Gray, vice president of Satcom Technologies for Satcom Direct, said on a statement.

The Exinda Mobile platform offers high-speed connectivity, collaborative caching and incorporates traffic acceleration based on the user's location. It doesn’t require extra hardware or network reconfiguration, often leading to lower capital costs for customers.

“As the mobile workforce continues to grow, it's imperative that customers are able to bypass traditional bandwidth and speed limitations and instead, access their network and critical applications without hassle," said Kevin Kirksey, vice president of sales, North America for Exinda.

 

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Hughes to Provide HX System 4.0 for Satellite-Based Cellular Backhaul Services in Southeast Asia
March 26, 2013
Hughes Network Systems and Maju Nusa Sdn Bhd (Majunusa), a Malaysian VSAT service provider, have signed an agreement to supply an HX System 4.0 NOC (Network Operations Center) and 130 HX broadband satellite terminals. Majunusa will use the system to deliver cellular backhaul services for 2G and 3G sites in rural areas without access to cost-effective terrestrial communications.

Launched in 2012, the HX System 4.0 features low jitter/delay and real-time streaming, ideal for cellular backhaul applications. Additionally, the HX90 satellite broadband router features an optimized encapsulation scheme on the outroute and advanced LDPC coding on the inroute, lowering operational costs on satellite links.

"For people who live in these rural areas, this will be the first time that they will have cellular services in their communities," Ramesh Ramaswamy, vice president of sales and marketing, International Division at Hughes, said on a statement.

Majunusa already has experience with Hughes HX System. The company has successfully operated their first of these systems, which it ordered at the end of 2011. The installation of this new HX network has begun and is expected to be completed by April 2013.

 

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NASA to Take University at Buffalo Student-Built Satellite Into Space to Track Orbital Debris
March 26, 2013

NASA has agreed to launch a satellite designed and built by a group of students from the University at Buffalo. The shoebox-sized Glint Analyzing Data Observation Satellite (GLADOS) took the team two years to complete and is designed to track the size and orbit of debris circling our planet.

John Crassidis, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UB, leads the project, which will test out his theory that glints of sunlight reflecting off space debris could help determine its size, shape, mass and spin. For this, GLADOS is equipped with cameras and navigation equipment. The spacecraft could also help predict the path of space debris several months in advance, thus avoiding orbital collisions.

The team, formed by Crassidis and 40 engineering students, received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Air Force to fund the GLADOS prototype.

 

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ILS Boosted by Satmex 8 Launch Success
March 27, 2013
Launch Services (ILS) has successfully launched the Satmex 8 satellite for Mexican satellite operator, Satmex. The ILS Proton Breeze M vehicle launched from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 01:07 today local time. It was the first successful launch for ILS this year.

Satmex 8 will replace Satmex 5 adding 45 percent of total capacity and providing enhanced performance in North, Central and South America at the 116.8 west orbital location. This new high-power, fixed service satellite has 24 C- and 40 Ku-band transponders, and will improve the current continental and regional services for broadband, video contribution and distribution, cellular backhaul, and distance learning.

The news is a major boost for ILS and good news for operators as both ILS and Sea Launch look to bounce back from recent troubles. In particular, ILS is hoping to make up for lost ground after issues in launching the Yamal 402 satellite for Gazprom Space Systems in December. Trouble occurred on this mission in early December, and even though the satellite was eventually placed into orbit, it now has a reduced lifespan. ILS has now returned to flight, a little over three months after this incident.

Phil Slack, the new president of ILS, said at SATELLITE 2013 that the company was looking forward to “an active 2013”, despite the late start. The company hopes to have anywhere between 10 to 12 launches this year. Slack also confirmed at the event that ILS has no plans to expand its portfolio of launch vehicles in the near future.

For Satmex, the launch of Satmex 8 is a vital part of the business plan, as the company looks to overcome a troubled past which saw it enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011. The operator is now on an upward curve, and the launch of Satmex 8 is the next step on its growth plan. While Satmex derives around 30 percent of its revenues from Mexico, it is looking to explore more opportunities internationally. In an interview with Via Satellite last year, Patricio Northland, the company’s CEO said he saw a number of growth opportunities for Satmex.

“There are some new DTH platforms emerging, but growth is also strong from existing platforms. We are also beginning to see potential growth opportunities on our cable neighborhood capacity. DTH and cable operators want to move into HD programming, which requires additional capacity. I would say that all of the existing video networks will require significant amounts of additional capacity. Satmex is well positioned to provide capacity to those video networks looking to grow. We can reach all of the Spanish speaking countries in South America, like Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, etc. That is one very specific growth opportunity for us. The second area of growth for us is cellular backhaul. We continue to see a tremendous amount of growth on cellular telephony networks,” he said.

Latin America remains one of satellite’s hot markets, and Satmex, with its now expanded capacity should be in a position to benefit. “While advanced economies have seen slow or even negative economic growth, the economies of Africa, Latin America, and Asia have expanded rapidly. With underlying economic growth over 5 percent – compared to 2 to 3 percent in advanced economies – these regions have seen higher levels of new demand for satellite services. There is also a liberalization factor, where a number of countries have loosened controls on the media, telecommunications, and licensing of satellite broadcasts. This of course stimulates new requirements and unleashes pent-up demand. The real question is the sustainability of growth – so again follow the trends in macroeconomic activity and regulation, meaning a country-by country approach,” says Jacob Gullish, Director, Space & Telecommunications Division, Futron.

 

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GlobeCast Selects ideal Systems to Build Multichannel Broadcast Facility in Singapore
March 27, 2013
GlobeCast Asia has selected Ideal Systems Singapore to design and build a new state-of-the-art multichannel broadcast facility in Singapore's emerging media city Mediapolis@one-north. The new GlobeCast facility will be located at a Infinite Studios building, which is a 10-story purpose-built structure with more than 24,000 square meters.

"This facility in Singapore will be our new regional headquarters, from where we provide expertise in content delivery and distribution to top-tier channels from around the globe,” Darby Sanchez, CEO of GlobeCast Asia said on a statement.

Since the company provides services to a broad diversity of channel owners, the technical requirement is a superset of the needs of broadcasters. To address this diversity of requirements, Ideal Systems designed a homogenized broadcast platform with native integration between key components. The new system with key components coming from Evertz Technologies’ features fewer custom-made integration points than would be expected with an enterprise-scale multiplatform, multichannel system. This natively integrated system is expected to streamline operations and enable more services to be delivered to more platforms at a lower cost, with higher reliability and shorter channel launch times. The solution designed by Ideal Systems also integrates components from Cisco, Thomson Video Networks, Aspera, and Harmonic with Singapore technology debuts for MediaProxy compliance logging and XenData Media Archiving.

 

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Hughes, Inmarsat Announce BGAN M2M Terminal Received Hazardous Locations Accreditation
March 27, 2013
Hughes Network Systems and Inmarsat have announced their Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) machine-to-machine (M2M) terminal has successfully completed testing by Met Laboratories (MetLabs), an OSHA Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory. The Hughes 9502, a global-use terminal designed and manufactured by Hughes for operation over Inmarsat's BGAN has been certified for operation in hazardous locations where explosive gaseous atmospheres may potentially be present, such as those classified as Class 1, Division 2, Groups A-D, and ATEX Zone 2, Group II, Category 3.

The terminal promises to deliver affordable, end-to-end IP data connectivity for industry sectors such as environmental monitoring, weather, tsunami warning systems, seismic data collection, utility smart grid applications, pipeline monitoring, well site automation, IP-camera surveillance, and satellite back-up for terrestrial fixed or wireless primary site communications.

"Hughes' latest Class 1, Division 2 BGAN M2M terminal is an exciting addition to our M2M portfolio and will play a significant role in supporting global energy customers who operate SCADA networks in hazardous environments,” Gerbrand Schalkwijk, vice president, enterprise energy, Inmarsat, said on a statement.

Inmarsat also announced Zedi, an oil and gas technology and services company in the field of production operations, confirmed it is placing orders for the newly accredited Hughes BGAN M2M terminal.

 

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SANSA and Roscosmos sign RadioAstron Agreement
March 27, 2013
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) have signed an agreement on the RadioAstron satellite, which was launched by Roscosmos on July 2011. Under the agreement, the RadioAstron mission will support and enhance investment in radio astronomy infrastructure in Africa, contributing to capacity building and socio-economic development on the continent.

The satellite was designed to complement the capability of ground-based very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) instruments with a space-based VLBI instrument. Although the RadioAstron aerial is only 10 meters across, and is dwarfed by many ground-based radio telescopes, by combining signals with telescopes on the ground (through interferometry) RadioAstron is able to make observations with a high level of precision.

African integrated communications solutions provider Telkom created an 18-m C-Band antenna available for RadioAston tracking and acquisition in South Africa. Under the agreement, Roscosmos will provide the hardware for upgrading the tracking station (antenna) for compatibility with RadioAstron, while SANSA will install and maintain the upgraded hardware and operate the tracking station.

The RadioAstron project is an international collaboration led by Russia’s Astro Space Centre of the Lebedev Physical Institute (ASC LPI) in Moscow. Other partners include the European Space Agency (ESA), the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), India’s Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

 

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ORBCOMM and Kobelco Construction Machinery Sign Deal for Global Telematics Solution
March 27, 2013
ORBCOMM has signed an agreement with Kobelco Construction Machinery (KCM), Japan’s second largest manufacturer of hydraulic excavators, to deliver a global telematics application.

KCM will use ORBCOMM’s global satellite communications network to track and monitor the location, status and performance of their construction equipment. The on-board system will feature enhanced visibility and better asset management of their machinery.