Industry At Large
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Boeing Space And Intelligence Systems Appoints Vice President/General Manager
Boeing announced that Howard Chambers was named vice president and general manager of Space And Intelligence Systems (S&IS), an operating division of Integrated Defense Systems. Chambers is responsible for leading the people, programs and assets of the company’s intelligence and space programs, including Boeing’s Satellite Development Center, Information Systems unit, Mission Systems unit and critical elements of the Future Imagery Architecture program. He also is chief executive officer of Boeing Satellite Systems International Inc.
Chambers has served, since August, as an interim leader of S&IS. Previously, he was vice president of program management and independent review for IDS, where he was responsible for the development and deployment of program management best practices, providing training and development for program managers and performing independent assessments of critical IDS programs.
Digitalglobe Names New Senior Director Of U.S. Defense Business Development
Digitalglobe announced that Thomas Henning was named the company’s new senior director of U.S. defense business development. Henning will interact with senior U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community leaders to help Digitalglobe meet the needs of government agencies. He also will work with Digitalglobe’s industry partners in the Washington, D.C. area. Henning previously served as the first liaison between the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and NASA, where he facilitated agency-to- agency relationships and identifying, defining and coordinating the geospatial and Earth mapping needs of both agencies.
DirecTV Appoints Chief Marketing Officer
Paul Guyardo has been named executive vice president and chief marketing officer of DirecTV, the company announced.
Guyardo will be responsible for all aspects of marketing, including branding, customer acquisition and retention marketing, direct sales, research and analysis, creative services and public relations.
Guyardo has served as Kmart’s chief marketing officer since March 2004. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Hughes Network Systems as executive vice president of television and marketing.
Echostar Names Vice President Of Law And Regulation
Echostar Communications Corp., which operates the Dish Network direct-to-home satellite television service, announced Sept. 27 that Linda Kinney joined the company as vice president of law and regulation.
She comes to Echostar after spending the past 11 years at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, where she most recently served as deputy general counsel under Chairman Michael Powell.
Mobile Satellite Ventures Names New Chief Operating Officer, Vice President of Corporate Development
Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) announced that Mark Faris would take over as the company’s chief operating officer. Faris, who has 30 years of experience in network operations, will be responsible for design, development, procurement, deployment and operation of MSV’s hybrid satellite/terrestrial wireless network.
Prior to joining MSV, Faris led the deployment for major portions of SBC’s cellular networks, as well as all facets of operations. He also spent two years with Bell Communications Research developing future operations support systems of Internet protocol-based networks.
MSV also appointed Ali Asghar vice president of corporate development. Asghar joins MSV from America Online, where he led the company’s alternative broadband development. Previously, Asghar was with Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & Company, and E.M. Warburg Pincus.
As vice president of corporate development, Asghar will be responsible for developing partnerships within the United States and internationally.
Weida Communications Appoints CFO
Weida Communications Inc. appointed Richard Szekelyi the company’s CFO.
Szekelyi most recently owned and managed Navigent Group, a business and financial management company providing business, financial and tax management, acquisition and capital transaction services.
Services
Intelsat To Provide Bandwidth Services To African Virtual University
Intelsat announced that African Virtual University selected the company to be the strategic communications partner for an initiative to establish a higher education bandwidth consortium intended to make Internet bandwidth more accessible to African universities.
In its initial deployment, the initiative will use Intelsat’s Globalconnex Internet trunking service to deliver bandwidth to 11 universities and two consortia in six African countries. Intelsat’s network for the service consists of its teleport in Germany and the IS-903 and IS-904 satellites, both of which provide coverage to the region.
Panamsat Launches Emergency Response Team
Panamsat announced it formed an emergency response team (ERT) designed to focus on quickly restoring telecommunications services to government agencies and private industry in the aftermath natural and man-made disasters.
The ERT will be dispatched from Panamsat’s customer service center in Ellenwood, Ga., and will work directly with customers to re-establish communications links. The ERT is intended to deploy everything from satellite phones to transportable and fixed transmission facilities to help restore voice, video, Internet and routed Internet protocol services within 24 hours of a loss of communications.
SBCA Unites With Global VSAT Forum To Advance Education, Training Programs
The Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association (SBCA) and the Global VSAT Forum (GVF) have launched a global program aimed at strengthening delivery of installation training for direct broadcast satellite and interactive broadband satellite systems. The goal of the program is to raise international earth station installation standards.
SBCA and GVF instructors are being cross trained to allow them to deliver courses from both organizations. Educational courses are being jointly delivered, and the administrative functions for both organizations’ courses are being coordinated to permit more efficient participation by instructors and trainees.
Contracts
Arinc Tapped For Satcom Services
Finnair, the national airline of Finland, has selected Arinc Inc. to provide a full suite of satellite communications services, Arinc announced. Arinc will provide passenger and cockpit voice service, secure ground-to-air calling and satellite datalink services to Finnair’s fleet of 35 aircraft.
Arinc announced separately that it is providing satcom services to Scandinavian Airlines System. Arinc will provide its Globalink satellite voice and data services for all aircraft equipped to receive the service.
EMS To Provide Components For Webb Telescope
EMS Technologies Inc. received a contract from the Canadian Space Agency to design and manufacture components for NASA’s next-generation space telescope.
Under the Cdn. $26.2 million ($22.4 million) contract, the company’s Space & Technology/Montreal Division will design a fine guidance sensor and a tunable filter for the James Webb Space Telescope. The fine guidance sensor tracks the position of stars to allow for precision pointing of the telescope. The tunable filter camera will explore objects at specific wavelengths. The equipment will be manufactured in the Space & Technology Division’s Ottawa facility.
The telescope, scheduled to be launched in 2013, will observe the formation of some of the first stars and galaxies in the universe.
Eutelsat Signs Deal With Sky Italia For Long-Term Capacity
Sky Italia and Eutelsat signed a strategic multi-transponder agreement that will provide Sky Italia with transponder capacity for the next 20 years.
The agreement renews Sky TV’s 16 existing leases and provides new capacity on 10 transponders aboard Eutelsat’s Hot Bird satellite. The new capacity will be used to enhance Sky Italia’s direct-to-home service, including the launch of high-definition TV service by mid-2006.
Globecomm Receives Contract From Raytheon
Globecomm Systems Inc. will provide satellite communications support to the U.S. National Weather Service under a subcontract from Raytheon.
Under the contract, Globecomm will support the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, an interactive data processing system that integrates meteorological and hydrological data and all satellite and radar data.
Raytheon Information Solutions won a 10-year contract worth up to $300 million for the operations and maintenance, optional product improvements, and software maintenance and support of the system. Globecomm’s portion includes a base award of five years valued at $5 million and the subcontract could be worth more than $11 million if five years of follow-on options are exercised.
Harris Wins Pentagon Antenna Contract
Harris Corp. received a $16 million contract to supply antennas to the U.S. military.
The contract from the U.S. Army calls for Harris to provide the first production lot of Large Aperture Multiband Deployable Antennas for the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps. The 4.9-meter antenna is an enhanced version of Harris’ lightweight high gain X-band antenna that supports C- and Ku-band communications.
The potential value of the contract could reach $100 million throughout the next four years as up to 200 antennas are delivered.
Iridium Tapped by U.S. Air Force For Meteorological Observing System
The U.S. Air Force is completing the worldwide deployment of more than 280 tactical meteorological data collection systems that provide mission-critical weather data to war planners and decision makers via Iridium satellites.
The system, dubbed the AN/TMQ-53 Tactical Meteorological Observing System, is a collection of weather sensors connected to a computer and Iridium data modem. The basic configuration measures surface pressure, temperature, dew point, wind direction and wind speed. The system can be enhanced to provide cloud measurements, vertical visibility, surface visibility, present weather, precipitation type and lightning out to 50 nautical miles.
NAL Research Corp. was the third-party integrator and provided technical support for the development, evaluation and deployment of the new system.
L-3 Communications Wins Army Contract For Satellite Communications Terminals
Communication Systems-West, a division of L-3 Communications, will supply satellite communications terminals to the U.S. Army.
Under the $82 million contract modification from Army Communication-Electronics Life Cycle Management Command Acquisition Center, Fort Monmouth, N.J., L-3 will supply its quad- band, High-Mobility, Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle-mounted, 2.4-meter Phoenix terminal. The vehicle-mounted terminal can operate in C-, Ku-, Ka- and X-bands.
The contract also calls for delivery of spare equipment and training.
Orbimage Receives Orders From Clearview Contract
Orbimage Inc. said it received new orders totaling $6.1 million under its Clearview contract with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. These new orders represent an increase in the volume of high-resolution commercial imagery that will be collected with Orbimage’s Orbview-3 commercial satellite or supplied from existing commercial archive holdings.
SES Americom Inks Deal With Jones Radio Networks
SES Americom signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar agreement with Jones Radio Networks, an independent radio programming company, to broadcast Jones programming over SES Americom’s AMC-8 satellite.
Jones Radio Networks produces and syndicates radio programming, ranging from single talk shows to 24/7 news and entertainment content. SES Americom said that more than 5,000 radio stations rely on Jones Radio Networks for content.
AMC-8, launched in March 2001, is an all C-band Lockheed Martin A2100 spacecraft located at 139 degrees West and covers North America and the Caribbean.
SES Astra Signs Deal With Polish TV Broadcaster
SES Global will broadcast five digital TV channels provided by Polish public broadcaster TVP (Telewizja Polska SA), SES announced.
TVP is one of the biggest public television broadcasters in Central and Eastern Europe with 52 percent of the audience in Poland. Under the long-term contract, TVP1, TVP2, TVP3 Regionalna, TVP Kultura and TV Polonia will be broadcast via Astra 19.2 degrees East beginning Oct. 1.
"The progress of digital TV will allow us to overcome the capacity restrictions of terrestrial TV and significantly enhance our offer to viewers," Piotr Gawel, TVP’s vice president of marketing and sales, said in a statement. "It will allow us to enter exciting new fields like thematic channels and interactive services."
TVP plans to add additional channels beginning in 2006.
Telenor Taps Orbital For Thor 2-R Satellite
Telenor ASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. announced that they signed a satellite manufacturing contract for a satellite that will replace Telenor’s Thor 2 spacecraft.
The Thor 2-R spacecraft will be based on Orbital’s Star platform. The satellite will provide Ku-band fixed telecommunications and direct-to-home television broadcasting services. It will carry 24 transponders and will improve Telenor’s service coverage in the Nordic countries, Europe and the Middle East. The contract calls for a 26-month in-orbit delivery schedule. Telenor has directed Orbital to negotiate with International Launch Services for a launch on board a Proton rocket.
ViaSat To Provide Additional Terminals To Navy
ViaSat Inc. received an add-on order from the U.S. Navy for the company’s Multifunctional Information Distribution System terminals.
The $5.2 million order from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego, augments a $60 million delivery order announced in June. The add-on order includes ground- based and airborne terminals, as well as spares.
The terminals provide secure, high-capacity, jam-resistant, digital data and voice communications for Navy, Air Force and Army platforms.
Technology
Glowlink Unveils Web-Based Spectrum Monitoring System
Glowlink introduced its Webaccess product, which uses Internet browser technology to provide a Web-based access overlay to the company’s spectrum monitoring system, the company announced.
Customers using Webaccess will have access to Glowlink’s Model 1000 satellite spectrum monitoring system and all its key features from anywhere where a Web browser is available. The Model 1000 system is used by the U.S. government and some of the largest commercial satellite operators in the world. (Glowlink Communications Technology Inc.; 333 Distel Circle, Los Altos, CA 94022; Tel: 650/237-0226; Fax 650/237-0225; Web: http://www.glowlink.com).
MCL Intoduces New DBS-Band TWTA
MCL introduces the MT4400 weather-resistant, antenna mount TWT amplifier for DBS-band applications at 750 and 500 watts. In addition, the MT4400 is available for C-, X- or Ku- band applications at 750 watts. Tri-band is available upon request. Some of the MT4400’s features include advanced thermal design, rugged construction for extreme environments, optional hand-held controller for complete local monitoring and control, prime power interfaces to a wide variety of voltages and frequencies, field replaceable modules and much more. There are also a number of amplifier options, including a block upconverter, linearizer and fiber optic L-band interface, as well as a number of redundant system configurations available. (MCL Inc., 501 South Woodcreek, Bolingbrook, IL 60440; Tel: 630/759-9500; Fax: 630/759-5018; Web: http://www.mcl.com).
ND Satcom Introduces Automatic Pointing System And Antenna Pointing Assistant
ND Satcom introduced two new products, the Automatic Pointing System and the Automatic Pointing Assistant.
The Automatic Pointing System points motorized antennas at any location within a few minutes without a pilot signal or reference satellite.
The Antenna Pointing Assistant is designed for non-motorized fly-away antennas and runs on a Pocket PC using a wireless connection to ND Satcom’s SkyWAN, SkyARCS or SkyVIP indoor units. The interface provides all the information and instructions to point an antenna at its target without the need for a spectrum analyzer, pilot signal or reference satellite. (ND SatCom AG; Graf-von-Soden-Strasse, 88090 Immenstaad, Germany; Tel: +49 7545 939 0; Fax: +49 7545 939 8780; Web: http://www.ndsatcom.com).
Quake Global Unveils New Satellite Modem
Quake Global Inc. introduced it new Q1000 satellite modem, which the company said would work on any satellite system.
Measuring just 2.5 inches square by 0.6 inches thick, the Q1000 was developed to meet customer demand for a very-small footprint modem at a price point less than $100. (Quake Global Inc.; 9765 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite A, San Diego, CA 92124; Tel: 858/277-7290; Fax: 858/277-7259; Web: http://www.quakeglobal.com).