World of Satellite-News Updates

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In Demand Renews Capacity Deal with SES
April 17, 2013
Content distributor In Demand has renewed its capacity agreement with SES for the delivery of PPV and Video On Demand sports and entertainment television content to cable audiences across North America.

As part of the deal, In Demand is using a full transponder of C-band capacity aboard SES' AMC-1 satellite to deliver programming such as movies, sports packages and events to cable headends throughout the U.S. and beyond. In total, In Demand relies on five transponders aboard three SES satellites (AMC-1, AMC-10 and AMC-11) for its full-time satellite distribution capacity.

The AMC-1 satellite provides North American overage and it is home to national television networks broadcasting to thousands of cable headends. The Ku-band beam also supports national broadcasters, as well as VSAT and broadband services for enterprise customers.

 

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Report: Satellite Leads the Pay TV Growth in Latin America
April 17, 2013

A new report from Digital TV Research indicates that the digital TV penetration in Latin America is about to shoot up. After a slow start, the research company expects at least 84 percent of homes in this region will have access to digital TV by the end of this year, almost twice as much the number at the end of 2012.

This means that in the 19 countries covered in the “Digital TV Latin America” report, 100 million digital TV households will be added between 2011 and 2018 to take the total to 134 million.

According to Digital TV Research, the growth is mostly driven by satellite television and the prepaid packages popular in Latin America. The firm expects 5 million pay DTH households to be created in 2013 alone.

Additionally, the report indicates that Brazil, Mexico and Argentina will provide the strongest growth for the region in digital television. Digital TV Research expects Brazil to add 43 million digital TV households between 2012 and 2018, and Mexico 15 million. The rest of the 16 countries covered in the report will also experience a rapid increase in digital TV, collectively adding 24 million digital homes between 2012 and 2018.

 

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NASA Selects UC Berkeley to Build Next Space Weather Satellite
April 17, 2013

NASA has awarded the University of California, Berkeley, up to $200 million to build a satellite to study how the Earth's weather affects the weather at the edge of space. The data could be crucial for improving forecasts of extreme "space weather" that can disrupt global positioning satellites (GPS) and radio communications.

Under the agreement, UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory will design, build and operate the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission scheduled for launch in 2017. The university will control the satellite from its Mission Operations Center, which currently operates the THEMIS, ARTEMIS, RHESSI and NuSTAR NASA Explorer missions.

ICON will orbit at 345 miles above Earth in the ionosphere to collect data needed to establish the connection between storms that occur near Earth's surface and space-weather storms, allowing scientists to better predict space weather. The results could help airliners, for example, which today cannot rely solely on GPS satellites to fly and land because signals from these satellites can be distorted by charged-particle storms in the ionosphere.

NASA announced the award last week, along with the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, which will map Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere from a commercial geosynchronous satellite.

 

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Arianespace Appoints Le Gall Replacement
April 18, 2013
Arianespace has appointed Stéphane Israël as its new chairman and CEO, the company announced April 18. Israël replaces Jean-Yves Le Gall, who is the new president of French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales). Israël starts his new role next week.
Israël moved to the aerospace industry in 2007, first as advisor to Louis Gallois, CEO of EADS, then holding various operational management positions at Astrium Space Transportation and Astrium Services. In May last year, Israël was appointed chief of staff to the French Minister for Industrial Renewal.
"I would like to extend my thanks to the Arianespace board of directors for entrusting me with this position, and allowing me to carry on the excellent work accomplished by Jean-Yves Le Gall over the last ten years. It is indeed a great honor for me to be chosen to lead a company that is now the global benchmark in space transport," Israël said in a statement

 

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Intelsat Takes Next IPO Steps, Announces Share Pricing
April 18, 2013
Intelsat has taken the next step on what it hopes will be a successful IPO process, a process in which it hopes to derive over $470 million in new revenue. The company announced, April 18, the pricing of shares of one of the most eagerly awaited IPOs in the satellite sector.
The IPO of 19,323,672 common shares will be priced at $18.00 per share and concurrent public offering of 3,000,000 Series A mandatory convertible junior non-voting preferred shares (the Series A preferred shares) at a price of $50.00 per share. The company has granted the underwriters in the initial public offering of common shares a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,898,550 common shares.
Intelsat forecasts that net proceeds from the offerings, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses, is expected to be approximately $471.7 million.

 

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DigiTurk Looks to 4K in Turkey
April 18, 2013
Digitürk, Turkey's leading pay-TV operator, is the latest DTH operator to enter into the 4K arena. The company has launched a dedicated demonstration 4K channel in partnership with Eutelsat Communications.
The first broadcasts in Turkey took place earlier this month at Digitürk's headquarters in Besiktas, using content aired for the first time and transmitted via the Eutelsat 7A satellite, home to Digitürk's pay-TV platform. “We have 4K capability as of now and aim to be ready for commercial broadcasts once standards of this ecosystem are finalised and consumer equipment is available in the market. This demonstration channel gives us a powerful platform to show the vivid experience afforded by Ultra HD and will enable us to build the broadcasting chain from content production to home viewing,” Emre Uysal, Digitürk's product development and broadcasting systems operations manager said in a statement.

 

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Cal-Bay Introduces Signal Interference Defense Instrument
April 18, 2013
Cal-Bay Systems has introduced its Spectrum DefenderTM, a new instrument that combines both spectrum monitoring and RF recording into one portable, off-the-shelf PXI-based platform.
As FCC regulations change, inexpensive, unlicensed devices can infringe on mission-critical and application-dependent VHF, UHF and microwave bands. Spectrum DefenderTM equips engineers to monitor, analyze, troubleshoot and defend their spectrum and system performance against disruptions caused by these stray or hostile signals.
Cal-Bay’s instrument provides survey, record, play and review functions in a choice of standard, built-to-order or custom workflow configurations according to the user’s needs. An ‘autonomous’ mode eliminates the need for continuous live monitoring by automatically recognizing and recording signal encroachment for further analysis.

 

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Just 4 Kids in Australia Benefits From Satellite Solution
April 18, 2013
Beam Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of World Reach Limited, has provided a satellite communication solution to Australian charity organization Just 4 Kids to be used on their adventures trips for disabled and disadvantaged children.
Just 4 Kids arranges trips to remote areas in Australia, thus reliable satellite communication is crucial in case of an emergency when there is no mobile phone services and poor UHF and HF radios.
Just 4 Kids motortrails use Beam’s PotsDock 9555 mounted in the car with a privacy handset. The Iridium 9555 handset fits in the docking station which also features phone charging, RJ11/Pots, GPS, tracking, Bluetooth, etc. The alert & tracking module can be configured to support periodic polling or emergency alert reporting.

 

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MetiSpace CEO Confident It Can Strike U.S. Government Deals This Year
April 18, 2013
MetiSpace Technologies CEO Theresa Beech is confident that the company can make a big impact in the U.S. government market this year. GMV, the private multi-national firm, based in Madrid sold its U.S. institutional business to the GMV USA management team, while keeping its commercial space business. MetiSpace Technologies is an exclusive reseller for the United States aerospace institutional market for GMV’s satellite control and mission planning products.
With the creation of MetiSpace Technologies, Beech is confident that the company will now be in a better position to pick-up U.S. government business as a result of not being foreign owned. “In the government sector, if you are a foreign owned business, the government has a variety of ways of creating firewalls, between the U.S. company and their foreign parents. Having foreign ownership makes doing business in the defence sector more challenging. We are now 100 percent U.S. owned so that challenge has been removed. This opens up new customers for us. I would expect to see start seeing the benefits this year. It is hard to say with government contracting, in terms of how long these things take. But, I would expect something this year. There are contracts that will be much more possible to us more than if we were foreign owned,” she says.
The company will also not have the benefit anymore of being able to do commercial business either. While the U.S. government market could be seen as a tough place to do business, Beech is confident the business will grow this year. She says, “For the government business this year, we are expecting a high single-digit, low double digit growth this year. We are expecting the government business to increase. We have seen an immediate response now that we are a U.S owned and woman-owned small business. I would expect to see some contracts come in this year. It is difficult to estimate how much those contracts will be worth. We no longer havethe commercial revenue so that revenue stream is going down. The government stream is going up. It is difficult to judge right now, but we think it will go up.”
In fact, current economic conditions could help a company like MetiSpace. “Our government customers are challenged to meet the same missions with less money. That is an ideal opportunity for a company like ours that offers robust, customizable COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) software that we customizeand adapt for each missionand each customer. The current environment is a huge opportunity for us to help customers meet their missionrequirements, with a quick turnaround in terms of schedule, as well as for a lower cost,” adds Beech.
With a grounding and knowledge of the U.S government market, as well as better status being a U.S business as well as the status of being a woman-owned small business, Beech is optimistic the dealflow will be strong for the company. She says, “We have developed a reputation. We are continuing with the same team. We have an established track record in ground systems software development, command and control, planning and scheduling and flight dynamics which are niche capabilities in the industry, but they are very critical ones. They view us far more favorably. There are not that many women in the industry, and fewer that own companies. We see a lot of opportunities in the areas related to ground systems and engineering services with those. So, we see opportunities with the NASA/NOAA type of agencies as well as the Air Force and National Security.”

 

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This Date in MSTory
By Sampo, on April 19th, 2013
BORN TODAY
1915: Jack Dusick, make-up artist for the movies in episodes 607- BLOODLUST and 808- THE SHE-CREATURE.
1919: Marshall Green, assistant director of the movie in episode 805- THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE.
1923: Hugh O’Brian, who played Harry Chamberlin in the movie in episode 201- ROCKETSHIP X-M.
1928: Luciana Giussani, who, with her sister Angela, created the comic book character Diabolik and whose stories were used in the movie in episode 1013- DIABOLIK.
1930: d*ck Sargent, who played Dr. Jameson in the movie in episode 811- PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR.
1937: Elinor Donahue, who played Mary Lee Morgan in the movie in episode 601- GIRLS TOWN.*
1940: Terry Bourke, production manager for the movie in episode K18- THE MILLION EYES OF SU-MURU.**
1954: Tony Plana, who played Ramos in the movie in episode 403- CITY LIMITS.

DIED TODAY
1946: Mae Busch (age 54), who played Susan in the movie in episode 103- THE MAD MONSTER.
1966: Paul Palmentola (age 78), art director of the movies in episodes 507- I ACCUSE MY PARENTS and 522- TEEN-AGE CRIME WAVE.
1992: James A. Rosenberger (age 84), assistant director of the movie in episode 523- VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS.
1994: Michael Carreras (age 66), producer and screenwriter for the movie in episode 111- MOON ZERO TWO.
1998: Taggart Casey (age unknown), who played Sheriff N.J. Shallert in the movie in episode 311- IT CONQUERED THE WORLD.**

EPISODE PREMIERE
1997: episode 809- I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF first shown.

EVENTS
1967: The movie “Gamera Tai Gyaos,” seen in episode 308- GAMERA VS. GAOS is reviewed in Variety.
1996: MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE opens in theaters. Mike Nelson, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu donate a robot puppet at the Planet Hollywood in Minneapolis.
2005: Rhino Home Video releases “The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 7.”