SPACE NEWSVOLUME 16 ISSUE 31 $4.95 ($7.50 Non-U.S.)

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E

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JEAN-MARCNASR

FORMER CHAIRMAN,SPOT IMAGE

CIVIL SPACE

NASA Not Ruling Out Sept. Shuttle LaunchNASA's next space shuttle flight will not launch before Sept. 22 as engineers struggle to under-stand and fix foam debris issues with the launch system's external tank. See story, page 4

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS

Satmex’s U.S. Creditors Eager to InvestSatmex’s U.S. creditors remain willing to advance the bankrupt satellite-fleet operator up to$55 million to get the already-built Satmex 6 launched. See story, page 6

Competitor’s Price Cuts Affect StratosMobile satellite-services provider Stratos said the recent Inmarsat business market-share andrevenue declines were caused by a competitor slashing its prices. See story, page 6

EMS Negotiating Sale of Canadian UnitsEMS Technologies has yet to finalize the sale of its two Montreal-based commercial space divi-sions, but said it should happen well before year’s end. See story, page 9

INTEGRATED BATTLESPACE

Lockheed Martin Pushes for Coastal ShieldLockheed Martin is trying to drum up U.S. government interest in a system that would defendAmerican territory against missiles launched from ships. See story, page 20

ViaSat Chairman Mark H. Dankberg (above) said ViaSat’s profit on the WildBlue and Telesat programs will take longer than previously forecast, in part be-cause of the continued research and development expense the company is incurring to ensure that their product meets customer requirements.

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Early Satellite BroadbandDemand Exceeds ExpectationsDelays in Hardware Deliveries a ConcernPETER B. de SELDING, PARIS

Early demand for satelliteconsumer broadband inNorth America is proving

greater than anticipated, buthardware-delivery delays remain aconcern, according to industry of-ficials.

With Telesat Canada’s Anik F2satellite’s Ka-band service opera-tional and the testing of a ViaSatInc.-based consumer broadbandterminal completed, the frontline in the battle to make satellitebroadband a viable presence inNorth America now moves to thedistribution points, where a two-month delay in product delivery— especially in northern latitudes— can threaten a business plan.

U.S. and Canadian distributorswould prefer to deliver and installconsumer equipment — arooftop antenna linked to a mo-dem attached to a computer —before winter closes in.

In the case of Barrett XploreInc. of Woodstock, one of Ottawa-based Telesat’s biggest consumer-broadband distributors acrossCanada, a scheduled July 1 com-mercial launch date was scrappedbecause insufficient numbers ofterminals were available.

The company continues totake orders for the product, soldunder the brand name Xplornet,and had more than 1,000 cus-tomers committed to take deliveryon July 1.

“We are now into August and

we stil l have not officiallylaunched,” Barrett Xplore said ina statement issued to Space NewsAug. 3. “We have between 50 and100 units, but problems with themanufacturers continue, so weare still in our pre-signing phase.We are taking orders to get anidea of where to distribute oncethe product arrives. A couple ofthousand units delivered nowmight be enough to permit us tostart commercial deliveries. Butthe orders we have had from ourdealers were in the tens of thou-sands.”

Telesat Canada and WildBlueCommunications Inc. of Denverare both using Telesat’s Anik F2

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Small Satellites & Small LaunchersStories begin on page 10

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http://www.atk.com

Pentagon Demurs onLong-Term Lease Deals

An eagerly awaited U.S. Defense Depart-ment review of its satellite transponder leas-ing habits has yielded recommendationsthat stick to largely the status quo, drawing adisappointed reaction from an industry ad-vocacy group.

“The satellite industry as a whole is disap-pointed to see they didn’t address multiyearprocurement, and we are discussing nextsteps,” David Cavossa, executive director ofthe Satellite Industry Association (SIA), saidAug. 5. The SIA, which represents satellitecompanies, has been pushing for long-termtransponder leases and other changes in theway the Pentagon procures commercialsatellite capacity. Currently the Pentagon re-lies heavily on short-term leases of capacityon an as-needed basis, a practice that indus-try officials say results in higher prices andmakes it difficult for them to plan ahead tomeet the needs of their largest single cus-tomer.

At the request of Congress, the Pentagonlaunched a review of its satellite capacity buy-ing habits earlier this year. The resulting re-port, “Defense Commercial Communica-tions Satellite Services ProcurementProcess,” was released in July.

Boeing Satellite Exec ToLeave at the End of 2005

Roger Roberts, Boeing vice presidentand general manager of space and intelli-gence systems and chief executive officer ofBoeing Satellite Systems, informed compa-ny officials Aug. 5 that he will retire Dec. 31.

Roberts will be replaced by HowardChambers, who currently serves as vice pres-ident of program management for BoeingIntegrated Defense Systems, according toMarta Newhart, a company spokeswoman.

Newhart denied an Aug. 5 Wall Street Jour-nal report that linked Roberts’ retirement toBoeing’s performance on the Future Im-agery Architecture spy satellite program,which has run into repeated cost and sched-ule problems.

SpaceX to AnnounceNew Falcon 1 Business

Space Exploration Technologies(SpaceX) expects to announce as many asfour new orders during the month of Au-gust for launches aboard its Falcon 1 rocket.The company already has won three ofthose contracts, and expects to land thefourth soon, said Elon Musk, president of ElSegundo, Calif.-based SpaceX.

“All I can say at this point is that we havethree launch customers from three differ-ent countries, one of which is the U.S.,”Musk said Aug. 5. Those launches will takeplace in 2008, he said.

Musk said he also anticipates winning acontract with the U.S. Air Force and De-fense Advanced Research Projects Agencyfor a 2007 Falcon 1 launch under a programdesigned to foster development of a newgeneration of quick-reaction launch vehi-cles.

The four new missions would bringSpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch backlog to seven.

The Falcon 1, which has been in devel-

opment for three years, is expected to debutfrom SpaceX’s launch complex on the Kwa-jalein Atoll no earlier than Sept. 30. The pay-load for the inaugural mission is the U.S. AirForce Academy’s experimental FalconSat-2satellite. The rocket is designed to carry upto 670 kilograms of payload to an orbital al-titude of 200 kilometers for $5.9 million plusrange fees.

Africa, Middle East SeenDriving C-Band Growth

Sub-Saharan Africa will be the hottestgrowth market for commercial C- and Ku-band satellite capacity in the next five years,with Western Europe among the most slug-gish, according to a global satellite-de-mand assessment by Northern Sky Re-search.

The Orlando, Fla.-based consultancy es-timates that global demand for C- and Ku-band satellite capacity will grow 3.1 percentper year between 2005 and 2010. But morethan 90 percent of this growth will be in Ku-band. C-band demand will be flat in mostareas — with two exceptions being the Mid-dle East and North Africa, where it willgrow with a thriving video market.

Another exception is North America,where demand for C-band will decline dur-ing the period.

The report, “Global Assessment ofSatellite Demand, 2nd Edition,” is consis-tent with other market forecasts in con-cluding that video broadcasting, which in2004 accounted for 61 percent of all C- andKu-band capacity leased commercially, willcontinue to increase its share of demand.

Global commercial satellite operatorswere beaming 10,650 standard-definitionvideo channels in 2004, a 16.5 percent in-crease over 2003. High-definition televi-sion, which requires more satellite band-width than standard-definition television,will help keep the satellite-video marketgrowing. High-definition television chan-nels numbered just 56 in 2004, accordingto the study, but should be nearly 100 bythe end of 2005, and around 200 in 2006.

The well-documented global trends —a healthier market for video than for tradi-tional carrier-type telecommunicationsand telephony, and the gradual decline ofC-band relative to Ku-band — mask thesharp differences among regions. Thestudy attempts to assess regional demandfor satellite capacity by measuring it inequivalent units of 36-megahertz transpon-ders.

It also assesses regional pricing trends,despite the hazards. “Reliable transponderpricing is notoriously difficult to obtain…because of the large number of contracttypes and conditions,” the study says.

It is much easier to count leasedtransponders, even if 36 megahertz of ca-pacity in a high-value video neighborhoodcovering the United States or Western Eu-rope can generate two or three times theannual revenues of the same transponderused for telephony.

By counting only leased C- and Ku-bandtransponders, Northern Sky concludesthat Intelsat Ltd. was the world’s biggestsatellite operator in 2004, with 22 percentof the market. PanAmSat was second, with15 percent of the market. SES Global fol-lowed at 12 percent, with Eutelsat S.A. ofParis in fourth position at 9 percent.

Initial SBIRS LaunchCould Slip Yet Again

The U.S. Air Force’s troubled SpaceBased Infrared System (SBIRS) missilewarning satellite program may be in forfurther delays as the Pentagon conducts an-other review to justify continuing the effort.

The SBIRS satellites originally werescheduled to begin launching in 2002, butthat date has slipped repeatedly, to June2008. The latest date is now in jeopardy, ac-cording to an Aug. 3 Air Force news release.

SBIRS was expected to cost about $2 bil-lion when the system prime contract wasawarded to Lockheed Martin Corp. in 1996.The program’s total cost, driven up by fund-ing-related delays and technical difficulties,was estimated at $9.9 billion when the Pen-tagon submitted its 2006 budget request toCapitol Hill in February. The Air Force toldCongress a month later that the cost wouldgo up again by an unspecified amount.

Acting Air Force Secretary MichaelDominguez notified Congress July 28 thatthe program’s cost was expected to increaseby more than 25 percent, triggering a recer-tification review under a law known as theNunn-McCurdy provision. The Pentagonwill have to certify to Congress that: SBIRS isessential to national security; no lower-costsubstitutes exist; the new SBIRS cost esti-mates are realistic; and the program is struc-tured to avoid further problems.

The Pentagon conducted a similar re-view on SBIRS in 2002, opting to continuethe program with additional oversight fromsenior military and industry officials.

WorldSpace Shares Rise onFirst Day of Public Trading

Struggling satellite-radio providerWorldSpace Inc., riding a wave of investorenthusiasm for satellite-radio in the Unit-ed States, successfully completed an initialpublic offering (IPO) of stock on the U.S.Nasdaq market Aug. 4. The stock pricerose by nearly 6.5 percent on the first dayof trading even after the company in-creased the number of initial shares andtwice boosted the offering price.

Washington-based WorldSpace, whichhas two satellites in orbit, offered 11.9 mil-lion shares of stock — up from the origi-nally planned 8.8 million — at a price of$21 per share. The stock closed Aug. 4 at$22.36, with 12.7 million shares traded,but slipped to close at $20 Aug. 5.

WorldSpace is a founding shareholderin XM Satellite Radio, which along withcompetitor Sirius Satellite Radio hasmade subscription-based satellite radio apopular consumer product, with morethan 7 million subscribers in the UnitedStates. XM, which uses WorldSpace tech-nology for its system, recently agreed to in-vest in WorldSpace as an entry into theAsian market.

WorldSpace is targeting markets in In-dia, China and Europe to offer a similarservice. WorldSpace has spent $1.2 billiondeveloping its services over the past fiveyears, but in 2004 generated less than $9million in revenue.

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NEWS BRIEFSSPACE NEWS

August 8, 2005

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This Week on Space.com

The launch of a new U.S. gov-ernment weather satellite aboarda Boeing Delta 4 rocket fromCape Canaveral Air Force Sta-tion, Fla., has been delayed atleast until Aug. 12 due to prob-lems with communications sub-system components on the space-craft , according to RobertVillanueva, a Boeing spokesman.

The launch of the Geostation-ary Operational EnvironmentalSatellite (GOES) N (shown atright being encapsulated in itsprotective fairing for launch), alsobuilt by Boeing, previously wasscheduled for July 28. The satellitehad been expected to launch inMay, but has been delayed by a se-ries of launch vehicle issues.

The Homestead Project: The Mars Foundationpresents plans for a permanent settlement onMars.

Mars on Earth: Astrobiologists are closing in onhow best to look for life on Mars, but they aredoing so walking around on Earth.

SmallSats Move to Center Stage: Over the lastyear, significant progress has been made in usingpico, nano and micro-satellites.

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GOES Launch DelayedAt Least Until Aug. 12

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TARIQ MALIK, HOUSTONNASA’s next space shuttle flight

will not launch before Sept. 22 asengineers struggle to understandand fix the persistent foam debrisissues with the launch system’s ex-ternal tank, agency officials saidAug. 5.

NASA had targeted Sept. 9 tolaunch the Atlantis orbiter on itsSTS-121 spaceflight, a second testof fixes made in response to the2003 Columbia disaster. But the ex-ternal tank foam shedded duringDiscovery’s launch and other mis-sion-processing activities have eat-en away at that flight window,which closes Sept. 26, NASA offi-cials said.

Despite the new concerns thatthe space shuttle’s external fueltank is still capable of sheddingpieces of foam insulation largeenough to cause a serious problemlike the one that doomed Colum-bia and its crew during re-entryFeb. 1, 2003, NASA has not givenup on the idea of launching thenext mission in September.

“I don't presume the worst, Idon't assume the best, I like to gowhere the data takes me,” NASAAdministrator Mike Griffin saidAug. 5 in a press conference atJohnson Space Center here.

While acknowledging that thecause and solution of the foamproblem would have to become ap-parent very quickly for the agencyto commit to a shuttle launch inSeptember, Bill Gerstenmaier, thespace station’s program manager,told reporters Aug. 5 that NASAhas not given up on launching theSpace Shuttle Atlantis then, but isnow targeting the end of the two-week window, or no earlier than

Sept. 22.“Until we run out of lead time

to make the September window wewill preserve it … because that iswhat the taxpayers pay us to do,”Griffin said. “When we can nolonger preserve the window, we willreset for November.”

Griffin has appointed a tigerteam to troubleshoot the cause ofthe foam shedding witnessed dur-ing Discovery’s July 26 launch.

Gerstenmaier said he expectshis first briefing from the tiger

team Aug. 9. The tiger team spentthe week of Aug. 1 at LockheedMartin’s Michoud Assembly Facil-ity near New Orleans, where thespace shuttle external tanks arebuilt.

“If next week, the guys have aeureka moment on the foam andsay ‘yes, we understand it’ ... thenwe’ll go forward,” Griffin said.

NASA mission managers de-cided Aug. 2 that Discovery wasready to return to Earth on Aug. 8,and ruled out the need to conduct

a fourth spacewalk to repair adamaged thermal blanket thatcame loose near one of the or-biter’s windows.

Gerstenmaier said he had notreviewed a 2004 internal NASAmemo, first reported Aug. 3 by TheNew York Times, criticizing qualitycontrol on some foam applicationtechniques. The report stated thatengineers “did not do a thoroughjob” of tracking the minute varia-tions in hand-applied foam, TheTimes reported.

“It’s available, I’m sure, in allthe other documentation that theteams are looking at,” Gersten-maier said. “We’ll take that infor-mation and see if there are somethings there, again from a technol-ogy standpoint or from an engi-neering standpoint, that we canuse and apply.”

During Discovery’s July 26launch, video from a cameramounted to its external tankrecorded several pieces of foam in-sulation peel away during the as-cent. A large, 0.4-kilogram chunkvisibly popped free from a ramppreviously thought safe from foamshedding. That chunk did notstrike the orbiter, but at least threeother foam pieces that also sepa-rated during the launch were toolarge to be considered acceptable,shuttle officials said.

The foam debris from Discov-ery’s external tank disappointedshuttle engineers and Discov-ery’s astronaut crew, given thatNASA has spent two and a halfyears and about $200 million ofthe $1.4 billion devoted to itspost-Columbia accident work to-ward revamping orbiter externaltanks to prevent harmful foamshedding. Shuttle officials said

they will not launch anothershuttle until they understandand address the foam issue.

A 0.8-kilogram of foam fellfrom Columbia’s external tankduring its launch and pierced theheat shield panel lining its left wingleading edge. That wing damagedallowed hot atmospheric gases toenter the wing during re-entry onFeb. 1, 2003, leading to Columbia’sdestruction and the deaths of allseven astronauts onboard, investi-gators found.

Gerstenmaier said that all of theimagery collected of Discovery’slaunch and subsequent orbital in-spections has given engineers awealth of data. “We learned a lotfrom this flight,” Gerstenmaiersaid. “The next step ... is to look atthe future tanks that are comingand see if there any applicationsfrom what we learned.”

Only then will engineers decidewhether to modify the externaltank for Atlantis, which stands mat-ed to its external tank-solid rocketbooster launch stack in the massiveVehicle Assembly Building atKennedy Space Center, or shift theorbiter to a completely new tank,Gerstenmaier added.

While the Sept. 22 launch datefor Atlantis shaves about two weeksfrom its flight window, there arestill multiple opportunities tolaunch the shuttle within the nar-row flight window.

“It’s still gives us four launch at-tempts toward the end of the win-dow, and still looks good from aplanning standpoint,” Gersten-maier said.

Brian Berger contributed to this story fromWashington.

Comments: tmalik@space.com; bberger@space.com

SPACE NEWS4

August 8, 2005

Foam-Shedding Investigation Begins as Discovery Heads Home

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satellite. Both have signed bulk orders forterminals from hardware manufacturers.

Ted Ignacy, chief financial officer ofTelesat, said Aug. 3 that demand for thebroadband service is just as strong as thecompany had hoped. But he also said thatthe consumer-hardware manufacturershave had trouble ramping up their pro-duction fast enough to meet demand.

“Right now demand is outstripping sup-ply,” Ignacy said. Telesat already has seenthe first benefits of consumer broadbanddemand from its sales of Anik F2 satellitecapacity to WildBlue and to the Canadiangovernment. This capacity was pre-sold be-fore Anik F2 was launched in July 2004 butwas not booked as revenue until this year.

The early success of Anik F2 partly ex-plains Telesat’s record revenues and earn-ings for the three months ending June 30.As reported Aug. 3, Telesat posted netearnings of $26.3 million, up 35 percentfrom a year earlier. Revenues, at $137.3 mil-lion, were up 62 percent.

Ignacy said between 30 and 40 percentof the increase could be attributed to one-time events including Telesat’s purchase ofSpaceconnection, a satellite-services com-pany that Telesat purchased in January.

Telesat and WildBlue both orderedsatellite modems and transceivers from Vi-

aSat Inc. of Carlsbad, Calif. The modemsare attached to users’ computers, and thetransceivers are part of the outdoor unitthat features a two-way Ka-band antennabuilt by Raven Antenna Systems of Ac-crington, England.

Raven manufactures most of its antennacomponents and purchases some fromChina. The equipment is then sent toRaven’s Bavavia, Ill., assembly plant, whichwas inaugurated in January.

Marc H. Agnew, ViaSat vice presidentfor broadband systems, said ViaSat hadtrouble with its modem in the spring, andmore recently slowed deliveries because ofunderperformance of its transceiver in ex-tremely cold conditions.

“We are going from a couple of hun-dred units per month to 10,000 or moreper month, and it is not unusual to faceramp-up issues,” Agnew said Aug. 4. “Also,you have the fact that both WildBlue andTelesat are ordering the same productfrom us, and they are competing to get de-livery.”

Agnew said the issues related to the mo-dem were resolved in May, and the trans-ceiver-performance problem was resolvedin June. There are no more issues thatneed to be resolved, other than those in-evitably associated with manufacturing andshipping a new product.

ViaSat Chairman Mark H. Dankbergsaid in an Aug. 4 conference call with fi-

nancial analysts that ViaSat profit on theWildBlue and Telesat programs will belonger in coming than forecast, in part be-cause of the continued research and devel-opment expense ViaSat is incurring to en-sure that the product meets customerrequirements.

“Overall, my impression is that it’s gonepretty well,” Dankberg said. ViaSat shipped12,000 units in the three months endingJune 30, with almost all of them occurringin June.

Raven Managing Director RichardDavies agreed with ViaSat’s Agnew thatpart of the delivery bottleneck is due to thesimultaneous demand for a new productfrom Telesat and WildBlue.

Davies said Aug. 5 that Raven hadagreed with WildBlue and Telesat to deliv-er 100,000 antennas over two years. Sincethe commercial introduction of the sys-tems in the United States and Canada inJune, those forecasts have been revised up-ward.

“We now think that the 100,000-anten-na mark will be passed after 12 months, not24 months,” Davies said. “The product hasbeen more popular than anyone expected.It’s great news, but it does take time to in-crease production in China and in Britain,and then to ship to the United States for as-sembly and delivery.”

Davies said Raven shipped 2,000 anten-nas in June, 7,000 in July and plans to de-

liver about 10,000 in August. By January, hesaid, deliveries should be between 10,000and 15,000 per month.

Comments: pdeselding@compuserve.com

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Anik F2

This photo of the shuttle Discovery, taken from the international space station, shows the dam-aged thermal blanket just above the “D” in Discovery under the orbiter’s crew cabin window.

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PETER B. de SELDING, PARISSatmex’s U.S. creditors remain

willing to advance the bankruptsatellite-fleet operator up to $55million in cash to permit thelaunch of a new, already-built satel-lite in early 2006 despite the factthat Satmex’s bankruptcy proceed-ings will be conducted in Mexico,and not under a U.S. court’s juris-diction, the creditors’ principalrepresentative said.

Mitchell A. Harwood, manag-ing director of the investmentbank Evercore Partners of NewYork, which represents Satmex’sU.S. creditors, conceded that theU.S. creditors had lost the battle ofcourt jurisdiction. They had want-ed to force Satmex to file for bank-ruptcy protection in the UnitedStates.

But he said they had nonethe-less secured enough U.S. courtbacking to enable them to presstheir case with Satmex in the fu-ture, if the Mexican government’shandling of the Satmex bankrupt-cy rides roughshod over the inter-ests of the U.S. creditors.

For the moment, Harwoodsaid, the U.S. creditors are willingto help salvage Satmex with cash toenable the company to finance theinsurance premium and otherlaunch-related costs of the Satmex6 satellite, which has been in stor-age since October 2003, when Sat-mex ran out of cash.

“The financing is ready for

them if they want it,” Harwood saidin an Aug. 4 interview. “The Mexi-can government is not unawarethat our interests and its interestsshould be the same with respect toSatmex.” But should things go bad-ly in Mexico, he said, the U.S.debtors reserve the right to seek aU.S. court order to attach a lienagainst Satmex’s U.S. revenues.

Satmex generates nearly half itsrevenues through the sales of satel-lite services to U.S. companies. In2004, satellite data-servicesprovider Hughes Network Systemsof Germantown, Md., was Satmex’sbiggest customer, accounting for28 percent of Satmex’s $71.7 mil-lion in revenues.

Harwood said that the U.S.Bankruptcy Court for the SouthernDistrict of New York, which re-viewed the Satmex case before ac-cepting July 29 that Mexico wouldtake the lead in the proceeding, leftthe door open for future action bythe U.S. creditors if Satmex or theMexican government do not pro-ceed in a straightforward manner.

U.S. creditors, who hold mostof the debt of Satelites Mexicanos,S.A. de C.V., in late May, had triedto force the company into a Chap-ter 11 U.S. bankruptcy filing. TheMexican government respondedthat Satmex, in which the govern-ment has a 25 percent equity stake,is a Mexican affair to be resolved ina Mexican court.

Satmex management appearedto side with the U.S. creditors in a

June 30 filing with the U.S. Securi-ties and Exchange Commission(SEC). A bankruptcy procedure inMexico, the company said, “maytake significantly more time and besignificantly less predictable than areorganization case under U.S.laws.”

Satmex operates two telecom-munications satellites — Solidari-dad 2, which was launched in 1994and is expected to continue oper-ating for another 4.4 years; and Sat-mex 5, launched in 1998, whichhas an estimated nine more yearsof in-service life.

Both satellites have suffered in-

orbit problems, and the Satmex 5satellite is at risk of losing both itsprimary and backup electric-propulsion systems. Satmex 5, aBoeing 601 satellite model, is oneof several Boeing-built satelliteslaunched in the late 1990s whosexenon-ion propulsion system’s(XIPS’s) on-board power unitswere defective.

In May, the backup XIPS on Sat-mex 5 began performing defec-tively, forcing the company to re-turn to the primary XIPS. If thisone fails, Satmex would be able tooperate for 3.7 years using itschemical-propellant system, ac-

cording to Satmex’s SEC filing.The shaky status of these satel-

lites, plus their relatively limited ge-ographic coverage and broadcast-ing power, have made the launchof Satmex 6 “critical to our abilityto increase cash flows and improveour financial position,” Satmexsaid in the SEC filing.

Satmex and its shareholder andsupplier, Loral Space and Commu-nications of New York, in late Juneagreed to resolve a series of pay-ment disputes to permit Loral toreturn Satmex 6 from its FrenchGuiana launch site to Loral’s PaloAlto, Calif., manufacturing plant tobe recertified.

A Mexican court must approvethe Loral-Satmex deal before Sat-mex 6 is moved. If approval isgranted quickly, Satmex 6 could belaunched in early 2006, accordingto Satmex and Loral.

Satmex and the Arianespacecommercial-launch consortium ofEvry, France, continue to discusspossible launch dates aboard anAriane 5 ECA rocket, a new versionof Ariane 5 that has made only onelaunch, in February.

Satmex also is weighing the op-tion of transferring Satmex 6 to SeaLaunch LLC of Long Beach, Calif.,whose Zenit-3SL vehicle operatesfrom a platform in the PacificOcean. Arianespace and SeaLaunch have a mutual-backupagreement, and Satmex officialsare weighing whether to switch toSea Launch to guarantee an earlylaunch for Satmex 6. The Ariane 5ECA launches two satellites at atime, meaning Satmex’s launchwould depend in part on Ariane-space finding a compatible co-pas-senger.

Comments: pdeselding@compuserve.com

SPACE NEWS6

August 8, 2005

Satmex’s U.S. Creditors Still Eager to Invest

Satmex operates two telecommunications satellites. Solidaridad 2 (above) is expected to continueoperating for another 4.4 years; Satmex 5 is estimated to have nine more years of in-service life.

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Competitor’s Inmarsat Service Price Cuts Affect Stratos’ Bottom LinePETER B. DE SELDING, PARIS

Mobile satellite-services provider StratosGlobal Corp., seeking to calm investor con-cerns, said the recent market-share and rev-enue declines in its Inmarsat business havebeen caused by a single, unnamed competi-tor that slashed prices to an extent that can-not be sustained.

The Bethesda, Md.-headquartered com-pany, whose stock is traded on the TorontoStock Exchange, has seen its Inmarsat busi-ness attacked since April by a dramaticprice drop on the part of a competitor. Theprice promotion is for Inmarsat’s GlobalArea Network (GAN) service, the voice,data and video communications links pro-vided users equipped with small, portableterminals.

Stratos had warned investors in mid-Julythat pressure on its Inmarsat sales, as well asslower-than-expected expansion of its busi-ness-oriented mobile-broadband service,would prevent the company from reachingits financial targets. Stratos stock tumbled onthe news and has since been trading near its52-week low at 7.11 Canadian dollars($5.81). Stratos announced Aug. 2 that itsmobile-satellite division’s earnings dropped

by 8 percent, to $10.7 million, for the threemonths ending June 30 compared to theprevious three-month period. Sales for thedivision, at $61.9 million, were down 4 per-cent.

Stratos reported company-wide earnings,before accounting for one-time events, of$2.5 million on revenues of $92.7 million —flat over the previous quarter despite the Jan-uary purchase of a German broadband satel-lite-services supplier.

Stratos is the biggest of London-based In-marsat plc’s 31 global distributors. Thesecompanies purchase Inmarsat satellite ca-pacity at fixed rates at the beginning of eachyear and then win discounts during the yearwhen they hit preset sales-milestone targets.

Each distributor thus is aware of thewholesale cost of the services its competitorsare buying from Inmarsat.

Stratos President Jim Parm said duringan Aug. 2 conference call with financial ana-lysts that “the intelligence we have” suggeststhat only one Stratos competitor has sharplycut GAN service prices.

Stratos in 2004 had a 25.3 percent shareof the global market for Inmarsat services.Next was Telenor of Norway, with 23.5 per-cent; Xantic, a joint venture of KPN of The

Netherlands and Telstra of Australia, with18.8 percent; France Telecom Mobile Satel-lite Communications, with 13.9 percent; andKDDI of Japan, 5.2 percent.

Several Inmarsat distributors owned bylarge telecommunications operators arenow on the market as their parent compa-nies focus on core businesses.

According to Stratos, pressure to show ahigh Inmarsat market share to prospectivebuyers is driving the competitor in questionto reduce GAN prices to levels that providelittle or no profit.

Parm said Stratos’ other competitorshave resisted the temptation to match theGAN price promotion. He said the problemshould be resolved by the end of the year asStratos and the other distributors respond tothe challenge by sweetening their service of-fers — but not through dramatic price cuts.

“We won’t match that price” level, Parmsaid. “But we are working with our govern-ment and military distributors to create cus-tomized prices and value-added services forthis market. Our [sales] volumes have stabi-lized since April.”

As he has said in the past, Parm saidStratos is keeping a relatively large cash bal-ance to take advantage of opportunities as

competitors seek to exit the business. Stratos,he said, would be a buyer, not a seller.

“Stratos is the natural consolidator —we’re the low-cost leader” in the Inmarsat-distribution sector, Parm said. “I feel that thisis the year of consolidation for the mobilesatellite services market. There are signifi-cant cost synergies from consolidation.”

Accelerating the move toward consolida-tion is the drop in global Inmarsat businessfollowing the peak U.S.-led military activityin the Middle East, centered on Afghanistanand Iraq. Inmarsat sales peaked in 2003 andhave since drifted down.

Stratos Chief Financial Officer Alfred C.Giammarino said the company’s Januarypurchase of Plenexis Holding GmbH ofBonn, Germany, a supplier of corporate andgovernment satellite services, will take timeto realize its potential.

Plenexis reported $40 million in rev-enues in 2004, but Giammarino forecastabout $30 million for 2005. “This was a fi-nancially challenged business,” Giammarinosaid. “It will take six months to re-establishPlenexis’ momentum. We expect modestgrowth in the second half” of this year.

Comments: pdeselding@compuserve.com

Group Is Eager To FinanceThe Launch of Satmex 6

http://www.pw.utc.com

Sea-Based X-Band Radar Gets Formal Dedication

U.S. military officials dedicated the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX) July 26 at a cer-emony at Kiewit Offshore Services in Cor-pus Christi, Texas. The new device will beable to track and assess ballistic missilethreats as part of the Ground-based Mid-course Defense program, Boeing Co. ofChicago announced in a July 26 news re-lease. Boeing is prime contractor on theGround-based Midcourse Defense systemand built the SBX.

The SBX consists of an advanced X-bandradar mounted on a converted oil-drillingplatform about 70 meters wide and 120 me-ters long. The system will collect and trans-mit data to elements of the ballistic missiledefense system that operate sea- andground-based interceptors.

The radar will be able to move through-out the Pacific Ocean from its home port inAdak, Alaska, where it will head in severalmonths after sea tests and exercises.

United Technologies Now Owns Rocketdyne

United Technologies Corp. on Aug. 2closed on its purchase of Boeing’s Rocket-dyne Propulsion & Power unit, whichbuilds the main engines for the space shut-tle and other launch vehicles.

The $700 million deal, announced inFebruary, narrows the field of U.S. com-petitors in the liquid-fuel rocket propulsionbusiness to two: Pratt & Whitney SpacePropulsion, a division of Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies; and GenCorpAerojet of Sacramento, Calif.

Patrick Louden, a spokesman for Pratt &Whitney Space Propulsion of West PalmBeach, Fla., said the sale will give the com-pany a comprehensive product line thatcan better serve customers. He did not com-ment on how much additional revenue thedeal could bring.

“This will make us better able to supportthe launch industry, and ultimately our cus-tomers, including NASA and its vision forspace exploration,” Louden said.

Fernando Vivanco, a spokesman forChicago-based Boeing, said the companysold Rocketdyne to concentrate on otherbusiness areas.

“We’ve been focusing more and moreon systems integration,” Vivanco said.“Owning the ability to produce propulsionsystems is not what I’d call a strategic corecompetency for Boeing.”

Rocketdyne, based in Canoga Park,Calif., has additional facilities in Alabama,Mississippi and Florida, and employs ap-proximately 3,000 workers. Louden saidnothing will change for Rocketdyne, at leastfor now.

“For the foreseeable future we’re tellingour employees that everything will stay thesame … that right now, everything will bestable,” Louden said.

Rocketdyne does significant businesswith various Boeing units, and that rela-tionship is expected continue.

“We’ve been a customer before, andnow Boeing will become a customer,”Louden said.

European Venus ProbeBound for Baikonur

Europe’s Venus Express satellite is ex-pected to arrive at the Russian-run BaikonurCosmodrome in Kazakhstan the week ofAug. 8 in preparation for a late-Octoberlaunch aboard a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rock-et, the European Space Agency announced.The spacecraft will spend five months enroute to Venus orbit once launched.

The satellite was packed into a containerat the Toulouse, France, facility of primecontractor EADS Astrium for its flight toBaikonur, via Moscow, aboard an Antonov124 cargo jet.

Built in three years, Venus Express fea-tures equipment already in use on Europe’sMars Express satellite, with modifications toaccount for the operating environment ofVenus orbit. The total mission budget, in-cluding satellite construction, seven observ-ing instruments and two years of operationsin elliptical Venus orbit, is 220 million euros($266 million).

Chandra Star Observations Raise Questions About Sun

Scientists using data from NASA’s Chan-dra X-ray Observatory have determined thereis three times as much neon in Sun-like starsas is estimated to be in the Sun, which may in-dicate that those estimates are off the mark.

It is difficult to take precise measure-ments of neon because its atoms do not emitsignatures in visible light. While Chandra iscapable of taking X-ray readings of neon indistant stars, the Sun is too close for such ob-servations, said Jeremy Drake of the Har-vard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics inCambridge, Mass. The spacecraft’s sensorshave too narrow a field of view to capture theentire Sun and also could be destroyed bythe intensity of the Sun’s rays, he said.

Neon, along with carbon, oxygen and ni-trogen, is vital to the energy flow from nu-clear reactions in the Sun’s core to its edge.Obtaining a more accurate estimate of neonin the Sun would help scientists build newtheoretical models of the Sun to better un-derstand its workings.

Cloud on Saturn MoonIndicates Ice Volcanism

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovereda large cloud of water vapor over the southpole of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, indi-cating ice volcanism on a body that scientistssay should be cold and dead.

In its July 14 flyby of Enceladus, Cassinialso found warm fractures where evaporat-ing ice likely supplies the water vapor cloud,NASA said in a July 29 press release.

“Enceladus is the smallest body so farfound that seems to have active volcanism,”Torrence Johnson, Cassini imaging teammember at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laborato-ry in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.“Enceladus’ localized water vapor atmos-phere is reminiscent of comets. Warm spotsin its icy and cracked surface probably are theresult of heat from tidal energy like the vol-canoes on Jupiter’s moon Io.”

Cassini’s spectrometer found water va-por comprises about 65 percent of Ence-ladus’ atmosphere, with molecular hydro-

gen accounting for about 20 percent andthe rest a mix of carbon dioxide, molecularnitrogen and carbon monoxide. Readingsindicate the south pole also is warmer thanthe rest of the moon, especially near thetiger stripe-like fractures that characterizethe south pole terrain.

Scientists speculate the moon is geologi-cally active enough to replenish the water va-por at a slow continuous rate, as it does notinstantly escape into space.

Iridium Subscriber Rolls Increased In Past Year

Mobile satellite communicationsprovider Iridium Satellite LLC of Bethesda,Md., has seen a 20 percent increase in sub-scribers since mid-2004, with 127,000 sub-scribers as of June 30, the company an-nounced Aug. 1 in its mid-year report.

The new total also represents an 11 per-cent increase in subscriptions since Decem-ber 2004, when the company had about114,000 customers.

Iridum’s revenue for the first half of 2005increased about 27 percent over total rev-enue for the same period last year. Iridiumspokeswoman Liz DeCastro would not pro-vide exact figures.

Organizers Ratchet upStudent Rocket Contest

The Team America Rocketry Challengehas decided to make next year’s rocket con-test for middle and high school students alot more difficult, requiring competitors toshoot their rockets to altitudes as close to240 meters as possible in flights lastingabout 45 seconds.

The event, cosponsored by the AerospaceIndustries Association (AIA) and the Nation-alAssociationofRocketry, still will require therockets to carry a raw egg as a payload thatmust be returned to the ground unbroken.

The AIA estimates about 10,000 studentsparticipated in this year’s contest, with ateam from Dakota County, Minn., taking thetop prize. Next year’s event is scheduled totake place May 20 at Great Meadow in ThePlains, Va.

Boeing Connexion ServiceWins Intel Certification

Connexion by Boeing is the firstprovider of high-speed Internet services tocommercial airline passengers to get theseal of approval from chip maker IntelCorp., Connexion announced Aug. 1.

The Wireless Verification Program testsIntel’s Centrino mobile technology with var-ious access point devices and providers tofigure out whether the two are compatible.If the hotspots are found to work with lap-tops built with the Centrino technology, In-tel awards certification.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel has recog-nized 103 companies through its WirelessVerification Program for Internet services inhotel rooms, lobbies and other areas. Seat-tle-based Connexion is the first to get thenod for airline service, Connexionspokesman Terrance Scott said. The Intelverification program’s purpose is to mini-mize service problems such as downtimeand poor site coverage.

Scott said the Intel certification willaward instant recognition for Connexion.

“In the mind of the consumer, they knowBoeing already as an aircraft manufacturer,and this partnership really puts an addition-al stamp of approval on the services cus-tomers want and need,” Scott said.

Connexion has been delivering high-speed Internet services to airborne cus-tomers for 14 months now, Scott said. Theventure has 600 agreements with corpora-tions to provide wireless services through ei-ther a flat rate or a per-minute fee structure.

Comments: Warren Ferster, wferster@space.com

NEWS BRIEFSSPACE NEWS8

August 8, 2005

NASA

/JOHN

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Messenger

NASA’s Mercury Orbiter Completes Earth FlybyNASA’s Messenger spacecraft swung

by Earth Aug. 2 for a gravity-assistedboost that propelled it deeper into thesolar system to study Mercury, the leastexplored of the terrestrial planets in-cluding Venus, Earth and Mars.

Messenger used Earth’s gravity tosling it into a trajectory toward Venus fortwo scheduled gravity-assist flybys in Oc-tober 2006 and June 2007. These flybyswill propel Messenger toward Mercury,where it will make another three flybys— in January 2008, October 2008 and

September 2009 — to help place thespacecraft into orbit around the planetfor a yearlong science mission starting inMarch 2011.

Messenger will provide the first im-ages of the entire planet of Mercury, aswell as collect data on the planet’s crust,geological history, atmosphere and itscore and polar materials. The spacecraft,which launched from Florida’s CapeCanaveral Air Force Station Aug. 3, 2004,is operated by the Johns Hopkins Ap-plied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

BRIEFS FROM PAGE 3

MISSY FREDERICK, WASHINGTONEMS Technologies Inc. has yet

to finalize the sale of its two Mon-treal-based commercial space di-visions, but company officials saidit should happen well before theend of the year.

The Norcross, Ga.-based com-pany held a conference call withfinancial analysts Aug. 3 to dis-cuss its second-quarter earningsreport.

Overall for the quarter, EMShad what company Chief Execu-tive Officer Al Hansen calledrecord revenue, bringing in $3.9million in earnings comparedwith $1.8 million in 2004’s secondquarter.

Total sales for the quarter wereat $81.6 million, up significantlyfrom $62.1 million for the sametime period the year before.

Operating income, coming inat $7 million, was the highest inseveral years, Chief Financial Offi-cer Don Scartz said.

During the call, Hansen saidletters of intent have been execut-

ed with buyers of both the Cana-dian units: Satellite Networks andthe Space & Technology division.The company is in the “due dili-gence” phase, Hansen said, andexpects to complete the transac-tion late in the third quarter orearly in the fourthquarter of 2005.

Satellite Networks has been adrag on company business in thepast largely due to problems asso-ciated with the antenna it is sup-plying for the Canadian SpaceAgency’s Radarsat-2 program.

EMS’s involvement withRadarsat-2 will end once thesale of Satellite Networks is fi-nalized. In this quarter, howev-er, the program did not have anegative financial effect on thecompany, according to GaryShell, a spokesperson for in-vestor relations.

“We didn’t specifically addressit in the conference call becausewe’re in the very final stages ofwrapping that up, and it didn’thave an impact on the quarter,”Shell said in a follow-up interview,though he would not give a specif-

ic date for the close of the project.The company’s LXE division,

which handles mobile computersand wireless local area networks,set a new sales record for the 11thconsecutive quarter, Hansen said.The division posted $31.6 millionin net sales, compared with $27.7million during second quarterthe year before, and $1.3 millionin earnings from continuing op-erations, up from $900,000 forthe same quarter last year.

“I would best describe [LXE]as a revenue- and profit-generat-ing machine,” Hansen said.

Scartz attributed the recordrevenue in part to high sales of ve-hicle-mounted terminals. ForLXE, the company has made a$1.7 million investment in newinitiatives, including both wear-able and voice-activated units,Scartz said.

LXE is looking to expand itsbusiness primarily in southeastAsia, Hansen said.

The defense and space sys-tems division of EMS showed$13.3 million in sales, up from

$12.2 million in 2004 at this time,and $800,000 in earnings,$500,000 higher than secondquarter 2004.

In the defense area, Hansenalluded to large potential govern-ment contracts on the horizon,without specifying further, sayinghe had a “high degree of confi-dence we will be successful in cap-turing them.”

Defense and space revenuedropped off first quarter due tosome restructuring of defensebusiness as well as technical prob-lems, Hansen said, but bouncedback in the second quarter. Thecompany is developing antennaeto be used on narrow-bodied air-craft, and expects it will become“the standard for airlines,” he said.

The company’s SATCOM di-vision, which handles antennaeand terminals for aeronautical,land-mobile and maritime com-munications via satellite, earned$12.2 million in net sales, upfrom $9.5 million during secondquarter 2004. Earnings for the di-vision were $900,000, higherthan 2004’s $500,000 for secondquarter.

Comments: mfrederick@space.com

SPACE NEWSAugust 8, 2005

9

LaunchReportA Japanese M-5 rocket successfully launched the Astro-E2 X-ray astronomy satellite July 9 from the Uchinoura SpaceCenter. While Space Shuttle Discovery (right) successfully launched July 26 from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., marking theshuttle fleet’s return to flight, NASA announced a grounding of further shuttle flights due to the detection of foam separatingfrom Discovery’s external fuel tank.

July 9 Uchinoura Space Center, Japan M-5 rocket, JAXA Astro-E2, JAXA Launched X-ray observatory spacecraft.

Date Launch site Vehicle and provider Payload and owner Outcome or purpose

Date Launch site Vehicle and provider Payload and owner Outcome or purpose

July 26 Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Space Shuttle Discovery, NASA STS-114 mission, NASA Launched first shuttle mission to the internation-al space station since the loss of Space ShuttleColumbia.

August Baikonur Cosmodrome,Kazakhstan

Soyuz-FG, TsSKB-Progress Galaxy 14, PanAmSat Communications satellite launched delayed fortechnical reasons.

JULY Launches

Aug. 10 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Fla.

Atlas 5, Lockheed Martin Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA To launch Mars orbiter.

Aug. 11 Guiana Space Center, Kourou ,French Guiana

Ariane 5G, Arianespace To launch communications satellite

AUGUST Launches

COMPILED BY CORRESPONDENTS TARIQ MALIK AND SIMON SARADZHYAN

MONTHLY

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iPSTAR 1, Shin Satellite

Aug. 24 Baikonur Cosmodrome,Kazakhstan

Dnepr, ISC Kosmotras OICETS nad INDEX spacecraft, National SpaceDevelopment Agency of Japan

To launch test satellite and technology demon-stration experiment.

August Cape Canaveral Air Force Station,Fla.

Delta 4, Boeing GOES N, NASA and NOAA Weather satellite launch delayed due to space-craft problems.

August Baikonur Cosmodrome,Kazakhstan

Proton-M, Khrunichev State Research andProduction Space Center

Anik F-1R, Telesat Canada Communications satellite launch delayed due tosatellite problems.

Aug. 18 Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia Rockot, Khrunichev State Research andProduction Space Center

Monitor-E, Khrunichev State Research and Pro-duction Space Center

To launch remote sensing satellite.

Aug. 30 Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Delta 4, Boeing Classified payload, National Reconnaissance Office To launch classified payload for National Recon-naissance Office.

MISSY FREDERICK, WASHINGTONSirius Satellite Radio Inc.

picked up a significant numberof new customers, leading to abig increase in second-quarterrevenue, but still trails far be-hind competitor XM SatelliteRadio, Inc.

New York-based Sirius fin-ished the second quarter with1.81 million subscribers, a 59percen t inc rea se in sub -scribers compared to the sameperiod a year ago, when thecompany had 1.14 million sub-scribers. Sirius filed its 2005second quarter financial re-port Aug. 3.

XM Satellite Radio of Wash-ington, by contrast, finishedthe second quarter with 4.42million subscribers, a 110 per-cent growth over its 2.1 millionsubscribers at the end of the2004 second quarter. The com-pany added 647 ,226 sub -scribers in the 2005 secondquarter.

The increased subscriber-base for Sirius offered a boostto revenue, which came in at$52.19 million for the quarter,$49.62 million of that fromsubscribers. In 2004, revenueswere at $13.23 million at theend of the second quarter.

Operating expenses, howev-er, also were up, at $226.78 mil-lion for the second quarter,compared to $146.22 millionin 2004. Sirius ended the quar-ter with a net loss of $177.55million, $40.75 million morethan its second quarter lossesin 2004.

The company has operatedat a loss since its inception, andsaid in the report it expects tocontinue to do so “until thenumber of our subscribers in-creases substantially.”

Sirius will have to contendwith even higher operating ex-penses as its high-profile addi-tions of radio personalities andsports programming begin totake effect. Its contract withU.S. entrepreneur MarthaStewart begins in the thirdquarter, and agreements withshock-jock Howard Stern andfor NASCAR broadcasts arescheduled to follow in 2006and 2007, the report said.

The quarter also saw the an-nouncement of an agreementbetween Sirius and Ford MotorCompany of Dearborn, Mich.,to have an exclusive relation-ship until September 2011,through which Sirius will sup-ply satellite radio receivers tobe installed in Ford vehiclesupon a customer’s purchase orlease.

Comments: mfrederick@space.com

Sirius Makes BigSubscriber GainsBut XM StillLeads Market

EMS Reports Record Revenue

JEREMY SINGER, WASHINGTONThe U.S. Defense Department’s inter-

est in small satellites has given rise to ef-forts to develop platforms and compo-nents with standard interfaces that wouldallow planners to mix and match hard-ware to perform a variety of missions atan economical cost.

In one such effort, the Pentagon ex-pects to award a contract in late 2005 fordevelopment of the Standard InterfaceVehicle, a common satellite platform thatcould host a variety of payloads.

The Standard Interface Vehicle couldlead to cost savings that enable the mili-tary to fly more of the experimental pay-loads that get built but then languish onthe ground because funds are not avail-able to launch them, according to a De-fense Department Space Test Programstatement-of-objectives document for theprogram dated June 13.

The Space Test Program finds rides tospace for military experiments that havebeen ranked in priority by a Defense De-partment-wide group called the SpaceExperiments Review Board. The pro-gram finds rides at no charge to the ex-perimenter for ranked projects, but pro-vides launches for unranked payloads ona reimbursable basis.

The Standard Inter face Vehicleshould be compatible with a variety ofrockets, according to the document,which was posted on a Pentagon Website. Among these rockets are Boeing’sDelta 4 and Lockheed Martin’s Atlas 5,which were developed under the U.S. AirForce’s Evolved Expendable Launch Ve-hicle (EELV) program and which launchthe majority of U.S. military payloads.Therefore the platform must be compat-ible with the EELV Secondary PayloadAdapter, a ring-shaped device that en-ables both vehicles to accommodate mul-tiple secondary payloads, the documentsaid.

The Space Test Program hopes tolaunch the first Standard Interface Vehi-cle in late 2008, according to Air ForceLt. Col. Dan Griffith, acting director ofthe Space Test Program.

Pentagon leaders have expressedincreasing interest in recent years in us-ing small satellites, not just for experi-ments but also to support military opera-tions. One set of Pentagon programs,generally referred to under the headingof responsive space, aims to develop anew breed of satellites and rockets thatcan be launched on short notice to meetmilitary contingencies as they arise.

Congress has been largely supportiveof the effort. For example, some of thecommittees that oversee Pentagonspending have proposed increasing themilitary’s 2006 budget request for re-sponsive space activities.

The Standard Interface Vehicle is byno means the only effort of its type. ThePentagon’s Office of Force Transforma-tion in Arlington, Va., is developing acommon spacecraft platform that could

debut later this decade as part of its Tac-Sat program, which aims to develop smallsatellites that can be tasked and con-trolled by forces in the field. The pro-posed mission, dubbed TacSat-3, wouldfly an experimental hyperspectral imag-ing payload, according to Pentagon offi-cials.

Meanwhile, the Naval Research Labo-ratory in Washington, and the JohnsHopkins Applied Physics Laboratory inLaurel, Md., are leading an industry andacademic consortium developing a moreadvanced version of the platform intend-ed for use on TacSat-3.

Pat Patterson, manager of the Tech-nology Development branch at the UtahState University’s Space Dynamics Labo-ratory in Logan, said the adoption ofstandard interfaces for small satellitehardware could lead to capabilities thatcannot even be imagined today.

To illustrate that point, Pattersondrew an analogy with the personal com-puter industry, where the use of commonports for Internet connections and acces-sories enable easy integration of systems.This has led to the development of newdevices such as flash memory cards thatcan be carried on a keychain andplugged into most computers, he said.

Another advantage of standardizedsatellite platforms with common compo-nent and instrument interfaces is thatthey would be less costly than custom-built hardware because they could beproduced in relatively large quantities,Patterson said.

Despite these advantages, not every-one is sold on the benefits ofstandardization, and industry has madefew strides in that direction, said Patter-son, who is chairman of the 19th AnnualAmerican Institute of Aeronautics andAstronautics/Utah State University Con-ference on Small Satellites in Logan Aug.8-11. The conference will feature a vari-ety of presentations on the pros and consof standardization.

One of the downsides of standardiza-tion is that it can require compromises incapability, said Quinn Young, a seniormechanical engineer at the Space Dy-namics Laboratory. Standardization alsocan drive up the weight of a satellite be-cause the platform is designed to accom-modate a large number of applications,he said.

The potential market for satellite plat-forms, components and instruments withstandard interfaces is not clear at thispoint, Young said. While the Pentagonhas several standardization initiatives un-der way, neither the military nor NASA isbuying small satellites in large quantities,he said.

This leaves some companies uncer-tain as to whether it is worth investing sig-nificant internal research and develop-ment dollars on standard hardware thatmay be used on only a few satellites,Young said.

Comments: jsinger@space.com

<Small Satellites and Small Launchers>Standard Interfaces Could HelpUnlock Potential of Small Sats

BRIAN BERGER, WASHINGTONProponents of small satellites say that tiny

spacecraft have potentially big roles to playin planetary exploration.

Today’s small satellites — generally space-craft weighing around several hundred kilo-grams — are confined largely to low Earth or-bit where they perform remote sensingmissions, conduct science operations andserve as technology testbeds and communi-cation relays.

But some forward thinkers are alreadylooking ahead to interplanetary missionsand see small satellites as a good fit with thespace exploration agendas outlined by theworld’s spacefaring nations.

The European Space Agency, for exam-ple, is taking a look at a low-cost, multiplespacecraft Venus mission that would utilizesmall satellite technologies, including asmall, deployable weather balloon of sorts,to study the planet. The Indian Space Re-search Organisation last year short listed agravity-mapping nanosatellite for inclusionon its Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission.

Andy Phipps, a senior engineer at theBritish small satellite company Surrey Satel-lite Technology Ltd., said his team recentlycompleted a so-called technology referencestudy funded by the European Space Agencyto identify the technologies and design phi-losophy needed for the proposed Venus mis-sion.

Phipps said his team spent 18 monthsand several hundred-thousand Euros devel-oping a mission concept featuring twoorbiters packed with miniaturized instru-ments and a tiny aerobot that would bedropped into Venus’ corrosive atmosphere.

The aerobot, consisting of an instru-

ment-laden gondola suspended from a bal-loon, would add about 90 kilograms of massto one of the orbiters, a data relay satellitethat would be placed in a highly elliptical or-bit around Venus. The aerobot would bedropped into Venus’ atmosphere where itwould float at an altitude of 55 kilometers,circumnavigating the planet several timesduring its projected 15- to 22-day mission.

The other orbiter would be packed withminiaturized instruments and would circlethe planet at a lower altitude, imaging theplanet and making scientific measurements.

The proposed orbiters themselves wouldbe relatively small for interplanetary space-craft, weighing several hundred kilogramsapiece. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Or-biter, in contrast, will weigh nearly 2,200 kilo-grams at launch and require an Atlas 5 rock-et to reach orbit.

The two satellites and the inflatable ro-botic stowaway would launch on a singleRussian-built Soyuz rocket equipped with anupper stage. The total projected missioncost, Phipps said, is several hundred-milliondollars, or about one-tenth of what the U.S.and Europe spent on the Cassini-Huygensmission to Saturn.

The proposed Venus Entry Probe mis-sion is only one of a half-dozen mission ideasthe European Space Agency is consideringas it looks ahead to the 2015-2025 timeframeto try to understand what technologies itshould be investing in now.

Phipps said the technology needs of theVenus Entry Probe mission are considerableand include: highly protective cover glass toshield imaging instruments from acid rain;steerable planar array antennas to increase

August 8, 2005

SPACE NEWS10

Small Satellites May Play Big RoleIn Future Interplanetary Missions

SEE SMALLSAT PAGE 12

Scientists say that data from NASA’s Lunar Prospector has produced decent gravity maps of the near side of the Moon, but that today’ssmall satellites can be used for future missions to map the far side of the Moon (shown in the 1996 Galileo image above).

>NASA

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BRAD AMBURN, WASHINGTONThe Falcon 1 rocket developed

by Space Exploration Technolo-gies Corp. (SpaceX) of El Segun-do, Calif., is the first of what indus-try and government officials hopewill be a host of new vehicles andsystems providing low-cost flightopportunities for experimentsand other small payloads.

Affordable access to space hasbeen a longstanding problem foruniversity researchers and otherson tight budgets, said CharlesSwenson, director of the Centerfor Space Engineering at UtahState University in Logan.

“There have always been fewopportunities to launch small pay-loads,” Swenson said in a phoneinterview. “Over the last year ortwo, those opportunities haveshrunk even more because we canno longer make use of the shuttlefor launching small payloads.”

With no program in the UnitedStates to regularly provide second-ary flight opportunities for low-cost payloads, Swenson said,SpaceX and other such venturesmay be the only near-term hope.SpaceX’s Falcon 1 “and other low-cost launchers [in development]appear to be the only way to getsmall payloads into orbit. It is theonly credible outlook on the hori-zon,” he said.

After numerous delays, theFalcon 1, which SpaceX Presidentand founder Elon Musk said willcost $5.9 million per launch, plusrange fees, is scheduled to debutno earlier than Sept. 30 fromSpaceX’s launch complex on theKwajalein Atoll in the PacificOcean. The payload is an experi-mental satellite funded by the U.S.Defense Advanced Research Pro-jects Agency and built by studentsat the U.S. Air Force Academy inColorado Springs, Colo.

Musk said in an interview thatthe Falcon 1’s first stage shippedout Aug. 2 on a 28-day journey bysea to the atoll. The rocket’s sec-ond stage, he said, is to be deliv-ered to Kwajalein aboard a C-17cargo aircraft in late August.

For the last decade or so, theprimary launch option for smallU.S. government-sponsored satel-lites has been the air-launched Pe-gasus rocket. Built by Orbital Sci-ences Corp. of Dulles, Va., thePegasus launches small satellites atprices starting above $15 million.

That price tag puts the Pegasusout of reach for small companieslike SpaceDev of Poway, Calif.

“It doesn’t make sense to makea $5 million or $10 million satelliteand pay nearly $20 million to get itlaunched,” said Jim Benson,founding chairman and chief ex-ecutive officer of SpaceDev.

SpaceDev is working on its ownlow-cost rocket, dubbed Streaker,with funding help from the Penta-gon. Benson says his company isabout three years and $25 millionaway from completing develop-ment of the vehicle.

“We have all the pieces of thepuzzle under contract, it’s just go-

ing to take a relatively smallamount of time to get everythingtogether and start launching,”Benson said. “We want to unleashthe demand for small satellitesthat we hope to build.”

To help accomplish this, Ben-son said SpaceDev is consideringbuying multiple Falcon 1 rocketsfrom potential competitor SpaceX.“It is more important to get thesethings launched. It is important

that [the United States] have asmall expendable launch vehicle.”

NASA, meanwhile, is designinghardware that would enable sec-ondary payloads to launch aboardvehicles like the Streaker whosedevelopment is being subsidizedby the Pentagon. The MultiplePayload Ejector, being developedat NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility inVirginia, would deliver up to sixsmall payloads to orbit, said Gary

Letchworth, technical managerfor the advanced projects office atWallops.

“We are trying to build a capa-bility that can service the smallerside of the market that has beenleft out in the cold,” Letchworthsaid. He said NASA hopes to havethe ejector built and tested by thespring of 2006.

Swenson said that whileprospects for small payload flightopportunities are looking up, thefuture would be brighter if theU.S. government would imple-ment a program to regularly in-

clude secondary payloads on itsoperational launches.

The U.S. Air Force has de-signed hardware to accommodatesecondary payloads on its work-horse rockets, but the effort hasgained little momentum becausesatellite managers are reluctant toshare their rides to space, Swensonsaid. “The risk is not as great as it isperceived to be,” he said. “Person-ally, I think nothing ventured,nothing gained.”

Brian Berger contributed to this story.Comments: bamburn@space.com

Hopes Rekindled for Low-cost Launches

SPACE NEWSAugust 8, 2005

11

SPACE NEWS12

August 8, 2005

SPECIAL: SMALL SATELLITES AND SMALL LAUNCHERS

data return from the aerobot; high-er efficiency solar cells; low-massstructural components that canwithstand the planet’s corrosiveenvironment; and lightweightthermal protection system for theaerobot’s entry vehicle.

Phipps’ colleagues will be pre-senting the Venus Entry Probe mis-sion concept at the 19th Annual

Small Satellite Conference in Lo-gan, Utah, Aug. 8-11.

Also presenting at the confer-ence is a group of Canadian scien-tists and engineers that have comeup with a nanosatellite missiondubbed Lunette that would mapthe gravitational field of the far sideof the Moon.

Kieran Carroll, a Lunette teammember and director of technolo-gy development at Gedex Inc., a

Toronto-based start-up companyspecializing in terrestrial gravitymapping for mineral exploration,said better maps of the Moon’s ir-regular gravitational field wouldshed more light on the lunar inte-rior, aid the cause of exploration bypotentially locating useful re-sources below the Moon’s surfaceand help engineers better plan andoperate missions in lunar orbit.

Carroll said that when space-

craft began orbiting the Moon inthe 1960s it became clear just howlumpy and irregular the Moon’sgravitational field is compared tothe Earth’s. Spacecraft trackingdata obtained during the Apolloprogram and more recently fromNASA’s Lunar Prospector missionhave produced decent — yet farfrom perfect — gravity maps of thenear side of the Moon. But gravitymaps of the Moon’s far side, Car-

rol said, are “largely guess work atthis point” because Earth-basedtracking stations lose sight ofspacecraft as they travel over thelunar horizon.

The Lunette mission wouldsolve that problem, Carroll said, bysubstituting spacecraft-to-space-craft tracking for Earth-basedtracking. Lunette is a five-kilogrampayload that would be added to alow altitude, lunar polar-orbitingsatellite mission such as the IndianSpace Research Organisation’sChandrayaan-1, or NASA’s LunarReconnaissance Orbiter. The pay-load consists of a three-and-one-half-kilogram nanosatellite and asmall amount of equipment thatwould need to be left behind onthe parent spacecraft for the map-ping mission.

The Lunette nanosatellitewould be released from its parentspacecraft and then maintain adistance of 100 kilometers. Thetwo spacecraft would send signalsback and forth using low-powertransponders. By measuring slightchanges in the signal, the differen-tial effect gravity has on each space-craft can be measured, enablingscientists and engineers to create adetailed map of the Moon’s lumpygravitational field.

“All the gravity models of theMoon have been done using simi-lar techniques except tracking sta-tions on the Earth have sent signalsto spacecraft at the Moon,” Carrollsaid. “That’s a classic range-ratetracking exercise NASA does on al-most all spacecraft it sends intodeep space.”

While that tried and true tech-nique works fine for mapping theside of the Moon that faces Earth,it does not work so well for the farside of the Moon, Carroll said.“What we aim to do is to doDoppler tracking on the far side ofthe Moon by tracking between onespacecraft and another.”

The Indian Space Research Or-ganisation short listed Lunette forinclusion on Chandrayaan-1 lastyear, Carroll said, but had to moveon when the team was unable tosecure an immediate funding com-mitment from the Canadian SpaceAgency.

Likewise, the window of oppor-tunity for including Lunette on theLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter hasclosed. NASA already has chosenits payloads for the 2008 mission,and the NASA official in charge ofthe project said it is too late to ac-commodate something likeLunette. “Effectively the door isclosed because of the timing,”NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Or-biter program manager MarkBorkowski said.

Carroll said the team is still try-ing to line up a funding commit-ment for the mission, which he saidcould be done for a “Canadian-sized prize” of just a few milliondollars provided accommodationsfor the tiny nanosatellite can be se-cured aboard some future Moon-bound orbiter.

Comments: bberger@space.com

SMALLSAT FROM PAGE 10

�

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SPACE NEWS14

August 8, 2005

New Skies Increases Transponder Fill RatePETER B. de SELDING, PARIS

Satellite-fleet operator New SkiesSatellites Holdings Ltd. has increased thefill rate on its five operating satellites to61 percent from 52 percent a year agowith no substantial reductions in itstransponder-lease prices, New SkiesChief Executive Dan Goldberg said.

Presenting the Bermuda-headquar-tered, Netherlands-based company’s fi-nancial results Aug. 4, Goldberg saidtransponder prices worldwide have gen-erally held steady in recent months. Theaverage price for new business booked byNew Skies this year stayed at around $1.2million per year for a 36-megahertztransponder.

New Skies’ owner, the private-equityinvestor Blackstone Group, took thecompany public in May with an initialpublic offering on the New York StockExchange. New Skies has since used thestock proceeds to cut its $744 million indebt by 31 percent.

Also helping to reduce debt was a$168 million cash refund from BoeingSatellite Systems International on theNSS-8 satellite, now in construction.Boeing had missed construction mile-stones. To avoid a contract termination,Boeing agreed to refund the New Skiesdeposits and take its future NSS-8 pay-ments in installments stretched out overyears.

Goldberg said New Skies in July con-cluded an agreement with competitor

SES Global of Luxembourg in which NewSkies agrees not to place a satellite at the125 degrees west longitude orbital slot,where it risked interfering with an SESspacecraft.

New Skies had secured internationalregulatory approval to place a satellite atthat position. But this authorization was

set to expire in December if New Skieshad not taken concrete steps to use theslot. Despite the impending deadline,and despite the fact that New Skies hadnot demonstrated a willingness to occupythe slot, SES agreed to pay $9.5 million incash to remove the New Skies threat.

SES Global spokesman Yves Feltesconfirmed the agreement Aug. 5, butsaid SES would have no other commenton it.

For the six months ending June 30,New Skies reported a net loss of $12.8million, on revenues of $117.9 million.

The company reported a net profit of$19.6 million a year earlier. The loss thisyear has been caused by interest pay-ments on the substantial debt New Skiesincurred as part of its purchase by Black-stone, and by a one-time payment toBlackstone that accompanied New Skies’May stock offering.

But several of its other financialmeasures have improved. Earnings be-fore interest, taxes, depreciation andamortization (EBITDA) — a commonlyused financial metric for satellite opera-tors — were $75.4 million, or 64 percentof revenues, compared to 56 percent ayear ago.

Backlog was down 14.5 percent, to$555 million, as of June 30 compared toa year earlier.

Transponder-lease contracts are oftensigned for multiyear periods, in whichcase customers get a discount over one-year lease rates . Depending on its

strength in a given regional market andthat market’s prevailing prices, a fleetoperator may decide to favor shorter- orlonger-term leases.

Some types of customers, notably mil-itary and other government agencies, areunable or unwilling to take out longer-term leases, which could explain whyNew Skies reported revenue and satellite-occupancy growth without a correspon-ding effect on backlog.

Goldberg said New Skies is seeingstrong government and military demand“for requirements that cover every re-gion of the globe.”

Goldberg said in an Aug. 5 interviewthat one-third of New Skies’ total rev-enues come from military and other gov-ernment services. He attributed the de-c l ine in backlog to the la te 2004cancellation of a $90 million contractwith India’s Data Access, a satellite serv-ices provider.

New Skies generates 42 percent of itsrevenues from North America; 20 per-cent from Europe; 19 percent from a re-gion including India, the Middle Eastand Africa; 11 percent from Latin Amer-ica; and 8 percent from the Asia-Pacific.

Data transmissions are 51 percent ofits business. Video transmissions, includ-ing direct-to-home television, accountfor 30 percent, with Internet and voicetraffic accounting for 14 and 5 percent,respectively.

Comments: pdeselding@compuserve.com

SPAC

ENEW

SPHO

TOBY

SHAR

ONNA

TOLI

Dan Goldberg

TARIQ MALIK, CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.The pieces are coming together

for NASA’s next Mars mission, a re-connaissance satellite designed toidentify good prospective landingsites for future explorers.

The Mars Reconnaissance Or-biter (MRO) is set to be launchedby a Lockheed Martin-built Atlas 5rocket Aug. 10.

“It’s a real mixture of feelings,”MRO project manager James Grafsaid in an interview. “We’re elatedthat we’re ready to go launch, butwhite-knuckled hoping that every-thing will go as we expect.”

NASA researchers tout theMRO spacecraft as the largest or-biter aimed at Mars in the last 30years. Standing about six meterstall and spanning 13 meters wide, itis larger than the agency’s otherred planet orbiters, Mars GlobalSurveyor and Mars Odyssey. Theorbiter weighs about 2,180 kilo-grams, but came in about 51 kilo-grams underweight, allowing engi-neers to add propellant thatshould extend its flight lifetime outto about 2014.

“This is a big mission for us,”said Doug McCuistion, director ofNASA’s Mars Exploration Program

at the agency’s Science Mission Di-rectorate, in a preflight press brief-ing. “It’s the most powerful suite ofinstruments ever sent to anotherplanet.”

MRO will carry a hefty sciencepayload to Mars, with six instru-ments designed to track martianweather, resolve objects the size ofa kitchen table and measure theplanet’s composition and atmos-pheric structure with more detailthan ever before.

“The MRO spacecraft is manythings,” said Richard Zurek, themission’s project scientist atNASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

in Pasadena, Calif. “It’s a weathersatellite, it’s a geological surveyorand it’s a scout for future missions.”

The MRO is expected to be thevanguard for two landers NASAplans to launch toward Mars in thenext five years, and will identify po-tential landing targets. ThePhoenix lander currently is sched-uled to launch in August 2007 andtouchdown in the planet’s polar re-gion. A large rover, the Mars Sci-ence Laboratory, is expected tolaunch in late 2009.

To prepare for those missions,MRO carries three cameras, onespectrometer, a climate sounder

and subsurface radar, all designedto shed new light on the structureand composition of Mars.

MRO’s High-Resolution Imag-ing Science Experiment will pho-tograph Mars’ surface with suchdetail that researchers expect to re-solve objects as small as 1.3 meterswide. To get a wider view, the or-biter’s Context Camera will gatherimages about 40 kilometers across,with a resolution of about eightkilometers per pixel.

A third camera, the Mars ColorImager, is expected to generate aglobal map of martian weather andtrack large-scale dust storms, day-to-day weather conditions, as wellas atmospheric and polar capchanges.

“Each day we will build up a fullweather map of Mars,” Zulek saidof the Mars Color Imager. “And[the camera] is the size of a hand.”

MRO’s Compact Reconnais-sance Imaging Spectrometer forMars will observe the red planet inthe visible and infrared range topick out minerals and other materi-als that may have formed in water orwet conditions in the planet’s past.

The Mars Climate Sounder, aninstrument designed to study thechanges in Mars’ atmosphericcomposition and temperature ac-cording to its height, is expected totake measurements every five kilo-meters between space and the mar-tian surface.

Finally, a shallow subsurfaceradar — similar but smaller to onethat rides aboard Europe’s MarsExpress probe — will search for un-derground water down to one kilo-meter beneath the martian soil.The Mars Advanced Radar for Sub-surface and Ionosphere Soundingaboard Mars Express, on the otherhand, will look deeper, probing asdeep as five kilometers beneathMars’ surface.

“The radar profile will build upa 3D view of Mars,” Zulek said.

Before the MRO spacecraft cancull secrets from the red planet, itmust first leave its home world.

After launch, it should takeMRO about six months to reachMars, then another seven monthsor so to adjust its eccentric orbitinto a 400-kilometer high circle.The orbiter will use aerobraking toadjust its orbit, swooping in close toMars and using the atmosphere toslow the spacecraft.

Engineers are taking care not todamage any of MRO’s compo-nents during the integration withits launch vehicle, including thespacecraft’s massive solar arrays.

“These are the biggest solar ar-rays ever sent to another planet,”Graf said.

Craig Calvin, an MRO systemsengineer for Lockheed Martin,said the orbiter’s solar panels spana total of about 20 square metersand carry about 7,000 solar cells.All those cells are needed to gen-erate the five kilowatts of power inEarth orbit, though that power out-put will diminish to about two kilo-watts at Mars, Calvin said, addingthat MRO’s instruments only re-quire one kilowatt to function.

SPACE NEWS16

August 8, 2005

New NASA Orbiter To Pave Way for Future Mars Missions

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Daniel A. StonePresident, Chief Executive Officer

William A. KlankePublisher,Vice President, Trade Publishing —Business Developmentbklanke@space.com

Lon RainsEditor,Vice President, Trade Publishing —Editoriallrains@space.com

COMMENTARY< EDITORIAL >

Mars Science Lab Can WaitL E T T E R S

Best Deal for DoDIn his Space News Com-

mentary [“DoD Increas-ingly Dependent on Sat-com Services,” July 11,page 19], SES Americom’sDavid Helfgott articulatesa flawed proposition re-garding the commercialsatellite bandwidth pur-chased by the U.S. military.While David was correct instating that DoD is seekingto more fully integratecommercial satellite com-munication (Satcom) serv-ices into its long-termstrategic considerations,his advocacy that the DoDshould do away with thecurrent commercial Sat-com procurement practiceand instead engage inlong-term bulk buys direct-ly from the carriers ignoresboth marketplace realitiesand the military’s uniquerequirements.

As many satellite indus-try observers know, in 2001the Defense InformationSystems Agency awardedthe valuable Defense Infor-mation Systems NetworkSatellite Transmission Ser-vices–Global (DSTS-G)contract to three smallbusiness prime contrac-tors; Arrowhead Global So-lutions, Artel andSpacelink. Under theguidelines of DSTS-G, allDoD commercial Satcombandwidth and servicesmust be procured throughthis contract. And this hasled to more than 30 per-cent cost savings for thegovernment when com-pared to other less com-petitive procurementarrangements.

DSTS-G’s innovativetwo tiers of competitionwas designed specifically toserve the government’sbest interests. Under

DSTS-G, the satellite carri-ers offer their best pricesfor bandwidth to theprime contractors, who actas brokers, integrators andsolution providers, and theprimes then competeagainst one another to pro-vide the government withthe total, end-to-end, best-value Satcom solutions forevery individual task order.

Under this contractstructure, the DSTS-Gprime contractors succeedand win task orders onlywhen they can provide thelowest price, best value, to-tal Satcom solutions. Thestructure of this procure-ment process ensures thatthe most competitive pric-ing for technically compli-ant solutions will prevail.The process also has ad-mittedly decreased profitmargins for the carriers,(which is the underlyingreason for Mr. Helfgott’scommentary) but that isthe way things work in thegovernment market space.

Furthermore, the gov-ernment also has veryunique requirements andrestrictions that the long-term, bulk bandwidth buysadvocated in the Helfgott’scommentary cannot ad-dress. As John Stenbit, theformer undersecretaryand chief information offi-cer of the DoD has said,“The current businessmodel for acquiring com-mercial Satcom services isgenerally based on the phi-losophy of ‘acquire asneeded.’” The warfighter’sneeds in military theateroperations are often tran-sient, unpredictable andrequire highly complexSatcom solutions.

The government recog-nizes that it often takes

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SPACE NEWS18

August 8, 2005

Worried advocates of Mars exploration are waiting for the othershoe to drop in the wake of NASA’s cancellation of the MarsTelecommunications Orbiter — and with good reason. The same

budgetary pressures that drove that decision likely will force agency of-ficials to seriously consider postponing a nuclear-powered Mars rovermission that was supposed to rely on the telecom orbiter to relay backto Earth the large, steady stream of data it would produce.

NASA faces a lot of tough money decisions that are certain to meandelays or outright cancellations affecting worthwhile programs. Givensome of the other priorities on its plate, NASA might decide that it can-not afford full funding of the Mars Science Laboratory right now andstretch out the program to put its launch off for a few more years. Thosepriorities — re-fixing the space shuttle, re-furbishing the Hubble SpaceTelescope, completing the international space station and gearing up forhuman missions to the Moon by 2018 — are going to make it extremelydifficult for NASA to pay for everything that different constituencieswould like to see funded in aeronautics, astronomy, Earth science andexploration of other planets.

Under such circumstances, NASA had little choice but to cancel theMars Telecommunications Orbiter. With the missions that absolutely hadto have it for data relay now on hold — sample return missions for ex-ample — pressing ahead with the $500 million spacecraft could not bejustified.

Should NASA proceed with the Mars Science Laboratory, currentlyscheduled to launch in December 2009 and arrive at the red planet thefollowing October, plans that call for using the Mars Reconnaissance Or-biter as the data-relay craft. The orbiter is slated to launch Aug. 10 andbegin science operations in November 2006.

That plan is perfectly sound, but NASA’s back-up idea is anything but.If the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is for any reason unavailable for

the Mars Science Laboratory, NASA would rely on the Mars Global Sur-veyor and Mars Odyssey orbiters, which were launched in 1996 and 2001,respectively. NASA officials insist that both spacecraft have sufficientfuel to continue operating into early next decade, but to count on themwith the science return from a billion-dollar rover at stake seems shakyat best, reckless at worst.

If the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launch goes smoothly, putting ahealthy spacecraft on a good trajectory, NASA could continue work onthe Mars Science Laboratory at the current pace. But things can go wrongat any time, and the orbiter faces another critical juncture upon arrivalat Mars in the form of an aerobraking maneuver that will put it into mar-tian orbit. NASA therefore would be wise not to go full-throttle on roverdevelopment until the relay craft is safely in orbit around Mars.

If the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is lost or encounters seriousproblems, NASA probably would have little choice but to delay the MarsScience Laboratory. Relying on the Mars Global Surveyor or Mars Odysseyfor telecommunications is too risky, and building an alternative relayprobably is not in the budgetary cards.

The larger question is whether NASA should decide now to stretchout the rover mission. NASA has major bills coming due between nowand the space shuttle’s planned retirement in 2010, a period that coin-cides with the prime spending years for the Mars Science Laboratory.

First there is the space shuttle. With the U.S. Congress still having notseen the full bill for returning the shuttle fleet to flight following the2003 Columbia accident, NASA is facing a new investigation and possibleredesign work to eliminate the foam-shedding problem that cropped upagain during Space Shuttle Discovery’s July 26 liftoff. And NASA still doesnot have a handle on how much more costly the shuttle will be to oper-ate in the post-Columbia environment.

Then, of course, there is the hardware needed to return astronautsto the Moon. NASA expects to spend $10 billion developing the Crew Ex-ploration Vehicle and the shuttle-derived rocket it would launch atop andwants both systems ready for space station missions by 2011. A heavy-lift rocket is not needed until later, but is expected to cost at least $5 bil-lion to develop, not including long-overdue infrastructure investmentsneeded at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

Unless NASA drops all other science activities for the next five years,or gets a huge budget increase, it is difficult to see how the agency cansqueeze in the Mars Science Laboratory during that time frame given itsestimated $900 million price tag.

Deferring the launch would by no means constitute an abandonmentof Mars exploration. Despite some high-profile setbacks, NASA has had arobust program over the past decade, and this will continue with the MarsReconnaissance Orbiter, the 2007 Phoenix Mars Scout lander and a yet-to-be-selected Mars Scout mission that would launch in 2011. Althoughnone is as tantalizing to scientists as a two-year mission of a high-pow-er rover, they will continue to add to the growing knowledge base of Mars.

Human exploration of the red planet is a long way off. The Moon isthe next destination for human explorers and activities that support thatgoal, including building a new crew transport and launching robotic lu-nar precursor missions, should take precedence over a flagship-classMars mission.

If NASA can somehow handle the Mars Science Laboratory along witheverything else it is trying to do over the next five years, that’s great. Butif something must be scaled back during this crucial period, the Mars Sci-ence Laboratory is a logical choice. SEE LETTERS PAGE 21

Saving Space: Securing Our Space Assets< JEFF KUETER and ANDREW PLIENINGER >

SPACE NEWSAugust 8, 2005

19

NASA’s Timid, Hysterical Critics< ELLIOT G. PULHAM >

The weaponizat ion ofspace, recently dubbedthe “question long neg-

lected in most discussions aboutU.S. defense policy,” is moving tothe forefront. Prompted by a re-cent meeting of the U.N. Con-ference on Disarmament inGeneva, proposed doctrinal revi-sions by the Air Force, calls for aWhite House national securitydirective, congressional hearingsand press reports, the opportu-nity for a reasoned and open dis-cussion of the importance ofspace systems to the UnitedStates and the requirements toensure the security of space as-sets is clearly upon us.

The time is right to consideralso whether those systems aresufficiently well protected, whichis a concern particularly appro-priate for an era of asymmetricstrategies. Space systems servehuman welfare, enable globalcommerce and are platforms forscientific advancement. They arealso ever more central to U.S. na-tional security. The protection ofthese assets in the future is a crit-ical national interest.

What are the precautionarysecurity measures that the Unit-ed States should consider to safe-guard these systems? Even themost causal observer can see thepositive influence of space onour economy and national secu-rity. These contributions, alreadysignificant, will only increase inimportance and criticality overtime. This is underscored notonly by the increased popularityof DirecTV and satellite radio,but also by the growing relianceon space assets by our military

forces.Space assets are an essential

force multiplier for the U.S. mil-itary, providing a tremendous ad-vantage on the battlefield. Thestatistics speak for themselves:the amount of bandwidth uti-lized for military operations in-creased by 42 times from Opera-tion Desert Storm in 1991, toOperation Iraqi Freedom in2003.

What the casual observer maynot know is that space has al-ready been thoroughly milita-rized via military space assetssuch as the GPS, imagery andcommunications satellites, andthat these military space systemsas well as their commercial coun-terparts are virtually undefend-ed. That, combined with theirgrowing significance to our eco-nomic and military power, makesthem attractive targets for thosewho would wish us harm. As ourreliance on space assets increas-es, this present vulnerability alsomeans we have the most to lose.

Thankfully, the challenges ofgetting to and operating in spaceminimize the number of coun-tries that can pose threats today,but that will change for theworse. Other nations are lookingat space for military purposesnow, and more will certainly fol-low.

The pivotal question facingthe United States now is whetherit will take the steps necessary topreserve and protect its positionin outer space. While the num-ber of nations capable of reach-ing space today is relatively few,the number of spacefaring na-tions is growing, and not all of

them are peace-loving friends ofthe United States. As such, it iscrucial that in protecting andpreserving our space assets, weadopt a proactive rather than re-active approach. In any matter ofnational security, we cannot andshould not be caught flat-footedagainst potential enemies.

Thus, we must work to pre-serve the peace while simultane-ously preparing to defend ourposition. This means specifically:

å Continued developmentand refinement of doctrine andplanning so decision makersknow how to react to events inspace;

å Continued investment inresearch, development and re-finement of those technologies,which provide the capability tomaintain peace and security inouter space; and,

å Educating the Americanpeople about the vulnerabilitiesof our systems in space and whythose vulnerabilities may provetempting to others.

Russia and China clearly see arole for an international frame-work to govern space. Arms con-trol advocates are using the re-newed interest in space issues torepeat the mantra that the Unit-ed States is hell-bent on deploy-ing weapons, that such actionsare dangerous and unnecessaryand that only a treaty can restrainour aggressive tendencies. Fortu-nately, all these claims are flatwrong. Too many of the argu-ments demanding that our coun-try pre-emptively and unilateral-ly disarm itself in space soundvery much like old Cold War ide-ologies recycled for the target du

jour.It has long been a favorite tac-

tic to thoroughly radicalize thevery doctrine of the ArmedForces designed to protect ourcountry. Caution is somehowtransformed into reckless aban-don; preparedness into aggres-sive posturing.

Last ly, the United Statesshould resist calls for a new in-ternational treaty prohibitingthe deployment of weapons inspace, as Russia and China de-mand. Such a treaty is unen-forceable and compliance to itsstrictures virtually unverifiable.

The ignominious record ofenforcing and verifying treatiesprohibiting activities on Earth isproof enough to give pause toany conversation about a treatygoverning activities in space. Atreaty also would fail to addressthe chief reason an adversarywould seek access to space in thefirst place – namely, the potentialfor inflicting a crippling blowagainst U.S. military and eco-nomic might by decapitating oursurveillance and communica-tions abilities.

Instead, a treaty would elimi-nate the U.S.’s ability to defendagainst or deter such threats byprecluding the necessary devel-opment of space systems anddoctrine.

Treaty proponents and armscontrollers contend that thetechnological sophistication ofthe United States would allow forquick reaction against any othernation deploying weapons tospace. While the United Stateshas few peers today in space op-erations, the ease of putting sys-

tems into space is greatly overes-timated by this view.

Space is a challenging envi-ronment, and the design andproduction of new systems iscomplicated, expensive and sub-ject to frequent reversals. Tothink that we can simply have as-sets ready to deploy quicker andbetter is a gross simplification.And even if it were true, thiscourse still leaves U.S. assets inspace completely vulnerable,opening the possibility of black-mail, coercion or worse.

Much like the world’s oceans,outer space can be preservedand balanced with the protec-tion of the parochial interests ofstates to ensure free passage andaccess for all. The unique posi-tion of the United States today af-fords it the opportunity to takesteps to ensure the defense ofour interests.

Such actions are not incom-patible with the preservation ofpeace and stability. Indeed, ourhistory shows that to be the firstorder preference of U.S. policy.

Unfortunately, history alsoshows that others do not sharethat view. The inevitability of in-creased access to space createsnew challenges for U.S. policy;challenges that must be con-fronted in a manner consistentwith and supportive of our na-tional interests.

Jeff Kueter is president of the George C.Marshall Institute, a Washington-based nonprof-it organization that specializes in national secu-

rity and environmental issues. AndrewPlieninger is an executive research analyst at

the institute.

No country ever built an airplane byrunning for the hills and abandon-ing the program the first time a

bolt sheared or a rivet popped during testflight. Our effort to conquer the seas wasnot cast on the trash heap of history thefirst time some ship sprung a leak.

These points seem to be lost on our cur-rent generation of lily-livered commenta-tors and pundits, and even a few faint-hearted friends in Congress. In the wake ofthe successful launch of Discovery, a cho-rus of these timid souls seem willing toabandon human spaceflight at the firstsign of evidence confirming that which weall know — putting humans in space is atricky, difficult, unforgiving and risky busi-ness.

It is, nonetheless, worth it all. I shudderto think where our country would be if this“do nothing, risk nothing” attitude hadprevailed throughout our history. Our ter-ritories west of the Mississippi would likelyfly the French and Mexican flags, railways

would never have crossed the continent,and heaven knows the defense depart-ment never would have been allowed tofund the Wright Brothers and that risky,dangerous, flying machine contraption.

A test flight is a test flight. It is designedto ferret out problems and flaws. If you un-derstand this, then you understand thatSTS-114 in its first week was a fabulous suc-cess that generated a treasure trove ofknowledge that will make future humanspaceflights — not only of the space shut-tle but of any spacecraft — better.

I normally balk at overreacting to any-thing that happens at NASA. In speechesaround the country, I usually start by de-bunking the notion that NASA “is” space— pointing out that the largest spaceagency in the world is the U.S. Air Force,that NASA accounts for less than 10 per-cent of space activity worldwide and thatsince 1996 commercial space activitieshave comprised the largest sector of themarket.

But it matters what NASA does. Thefact that hundreds of millions of peoplewatched the launch of Discovery on televi-sion, a half-million showed up in person inFlorida for the launch and another half-million more had it streamed to their desk-tops should tell us all we need to know. Hu-man spaceflight and space exploration iswhat captivates the minds and hearts ofour people, especially our youth, and pro-pels us forward.

Warts and all, foam shedding and all,the fact that virtually every newspaper inAmerica (and most around the globe) hadspace exploration on its front page nearlyevery day for the better part of a weekshould tell us something. We know it isdangerous. We know it will probably alwaysbe dangerous. And still we want to go, forin going lies all our hopes, dreams and as-pirations.

For all those cranks, sots, killjoys and ig-noramuses who think the launch of Dis-covery was a failure — sit down, shut up,

and listen:å Spectacular Success No. 1 — Discov-

ery is safely on orbit, docked to the inter-national space station, and all indicationsare that she has suffered far less launchdamage than any shuttle launched before.Human space exploration is proceeding.It is only the schedule of this explorationthat will vary.

å Spectacular Success No. 2 — Thanksto the efforts of thousands of NASA, con-tractor and Department of Defense per-sonnel (let’s not forget that the Air Forceplays numerous critical roles in every shut-tle launch, and that U.S. Strategic Com-mand is also heavily involved), the newlaunch observation and monitoring meas-ures performed brilliantly. We’ve collectedmore data and imagery on this shuttlelaunch than on any human spaceflight inhistory. The systems worked. Because ofthat, we know we still have things to fix on

SEE PULHAM PAGE 21

MDA Tweaks Missile ShieldDeployment Plan for 2005

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency(MDA) plans to take four of the 10 inter-ceptor rockets that were slated for opera-tional deployment this year at FortGreely, Alaska, and use them instead forground-based testing, according to anagency official.

That decision, first reported Aug. 3 bythe newsletter Inside Missile Defense, wasbased on recommendations from reviewteams in the wake of back-to-back testslate last year and early this year in whichinterceptors failed to launch, the officialsaid.

The Pentagon had expected to de-clare the Ground Based Midcourse De-fense system operational by the end of2004, but missed that date and has yet toset a new deadline.

Currently there are six interceptors insilos at Fort Greely, and by the end of2005 there will be 12, the MDA officialsaid. Those 12 rockets will give the Pen-tagon “a very good defensive capability,”the MDA official said.

The MDA has two interceptors de-ployed at Vandenberg Air Force Base,Calif., and plans to add 12 more rocketsin silos at Fort Greely in 2006, the officialsaid.

Meanwhile, the MDA plans four flighttests of the Ground Based Midcourse De-fense system over the next year, with allbut the first taking place from Vanden-berg, the MDA official said. The first twoare booster flight tests with no targetlaunched. The official described thethird test as a “radar characterization”test, and the fourth as an intercept.

Senate Confirms Sega asAir Force Undersecretary

The U.S. Senate confirmed RonaldM. Sega to serve as undersecretary of theU.S. Air Force July 29, shortly before ad-journing for the month of August.

Sega, who previously served as thePentagon’s director of defense researchand engineering, replaces Peter B. Teets,who retired in April.

Comments: Jeremy Singer, jsinger@space.com

INTEGRATED BATTLESPACELockheed Touts Coastal Missile Shield

SPACE NEWS20

August 8, 2005

AIRFORCEPHOTOBYJIM

SHRYNE

Airborne Laser

A Boeing-led industry team hascompleted a series of flight tests of thefire control system for the AirborneLaser (ABL), the company an-nounced in a news release Aug. 3.

Lockheed Martin is building thefire- and beam-control systems for theABL, a modified Boeing 747 aircraftthat will be equipped with a laser forshooting down enemy missiles intheir boost phase. The first missile-in-tercept test of the ABL is scheduledfor 2008.

The recently completed testingdemonstrated that the ABL’s laser-pointing, vibration-control and tar-get-acquisition systems are working

properly, the press release said.“Completion of this test phase for

the Airborne Laser program furtherdemonstrates the air worthiness andthe functionality of the airborne mis-sion payload,” said Patrick Shanahan,Boeing vice president for missile de-fense systems. “With each testing in-crement, the ABL team is makingsteady progress in bringing the ABLinto the hands of the warfighter to de-fend against ballistic missile threats.”

Now that these tests are complete,the aircraft will be moved to a Boeingfacility in Wichita, Kansas, where itwill be modified to accommodate therest of the laser system.

ABL Fire Control System Performs Well in Tests

JEREMY SINGER, WASHINGTONDefense and aerospace giant Lockheed

Martin Corp. of Bethesda, Md., is trying todrum up U.S. government interest in a sys-tem that would defend American territoryagainst missiles launched from ships lurkingoffshore.

The U.S. Department of Defense is de-ploying a rudimentary system to protect thenation against intercontinental ballistic mis-siles (ICBMs), but there is no program underway to guard against sea-based threats. Withapproximately 20,000 kilometersofcoastline,the United States is highly vulnerable to suchan attack, according to David Kier, LockheedMartin vice president and managing directorof protection systems.

Approximately 75 percent of the U.S.population and 75 percent of U.S. militarybases are located within 322 kilometers of acoast, putting them within range of missilesfired from offshore, Kier told reporters at aJuly 28 luncheon at the National Press Clubhere.

Short- and medium-range ballistic mis-siles are widely available throughout theworld and are easy to conceal and launchfrom an innocuous looking ship, said Kier, aformer deputy director of the U.S. NationalReconnaissance Office. Cruise missiles areeven easier to hide, less expensive and areabout 10 times more accurate than ballistic

rockets, he said.For about $10 billion to $12 billion, Kier

said, the United States could deploy a shieldagainst such threats drawing on missile de-fense systems that are either in use today orwell under development — in several casesby Lockheed Martin. The hardware in use to-day or ready for deployment includes theatermissile defense systems such as the PatriotAdvanced Capability 3 interceptor and theAegis-ship-based tracking radars and Stan-dard Missile 3 interceptors, he said.

Ballistic missiles launched near U.S.shores could be detected by the Space BasedInfrared System, a series of missile warningsatellites under development by LockheedMartin Space Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif.Those satellites are supposed to begin re-placing the Defense Support Program mis-sile warning satellites in 2008 or 2009.

Cruise missile launches cannot be detect-ed with the infrared satellites, but Kier saidLockheed Martin is working on a system thatcould do the job by measuring disruptions inFM radio frequency waves.

Other hardware that could contribute toa coastal missile defense system include un-manned aerial vehicles and a high-altitudeairship under development by LockheedMartin that would be able to dwell over areasfor extended periods of time, Kier said.

Thad Madden, a spokesman for Lock-heed Martin, said the various components ofthe architecture would be integrated andmanaged using the command-and-controlsystem for the Ground Based Midcourse De-fense system, the U.S. territorial ICBMshield.

Lockheed Martin designed its proposedcoastal defense architecture on its own ac-cord — the Pentagon has no program underway to address the threat and no immediateplans for one. But that could change if a con-gressional proposal to provide funding in2006 for such an effort becomes law, an offi-cial with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency(MDA) said.

The House of Representatives includedabout $20 million for work on a coastal mis-sile defense system in its version of the 2006Defense Appropriations Act, which waspassed June 20.

In the report accompanying the bill,members of the House Appropriations Com-mittee said they have become “increasinglyconcerned” about offshore missile attacksand asked the MDA to conduct a compre-hensive analysis of the threat and how tocounter it. The lawmakers directed the MDAto give periodic updates on its findings to thecommittee.

“This analysis should consider deploy-ment options that would protect significantpopulation centers, use mature technologies,

and include progressions for spiral technolo-gy upgrades that would enhance missile de-fense capabilities over time,” the report said.

The Senate Appropriations Committeehas yet to mark up its version of the 2006defense budget, and will not do so beforeCongress returns from its August recess inSeptember.

Victoria Samson, a research analyst at theCenter for Defense Information, a thinktank here, said cruise missiles potentiallycould pose a significant threat to the U.S.homeland, but added that a nationwide in-terceptor network likely is unaffordable.

Samson noted that the Pentagon hasspent roughly $92 billion to date on the na-tional ICBM shield, and said Lockheed Mar-tin likely is underestimating the price tag ofits proposed coastal defense system. Shepointed out that the Pentagon deployedover 1,000 Patriot interceptors to defendU.S. troops in Iraq, a far smaller area thanthe United States.

The United States could only afford toprotect a few key areas of its territory againstmissiles launched from offshore, Samsonsaid. Measures to stop the spread of missiletechnology to U.S. enemies are a far moresensible way to address the problem, she said.

Comments: jsinger@space.com

Approximately 75 percent of the U.S. population and 75 percentof U.S. military bases are located within 322 kilometers of acoast, putting them within range of missiles fired from offshore.

David Kier

�

HorizonOn The

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the external tank.å Spectacular Success No. 3

— The NASA culture. Withinmoments of understanding thatfoam shedding is still a problem,NASA managers immediatelyand unequivocally decided thatno further flights would takeplace until remedies are found.This goes to the heart of the rec-ommendations of the ColumbiaAccident Investigation Board.Whereas Columbia’s launch andreturn was the textbook study ofhow not to run a space agency,mission STS-114 is the textbookexample of how things should bedone.

In short, NASA is back. Getover it.

None of this means the shut-tle program won’t change, orthat plans for developing a re-placement won’t be altered.There are legitimate questionsabout what fixes need to be madenext, and whether the time andcost of those fixes is the best wayto crank up the space agency andvigorously pursue the Vision forSpace Exploration.

But those things should hap-pen in v iew of the lessonslearned on this flight, not de-spite them.

Elliot G. Pulham is president and chief executiveofficer of the Space Foundation.

PULHAM FROM PAGE 19

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Deputy AssistantAdministrator for Satellite

& Information Services(A Senior Executive Service Position in the Federal Government)

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Data, and Information ServiceSilver Spring, Maryland

$107,550 - $162,100 annuallyVacancy Announcement NOAA#05-11

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Broad background in physical and/or atmospheric sciences with demonstratedprofessional experience in at least two of the following: implementation andoperation of satellite-based remote sensing systems; operational satellite serv-ice programs; information systems technology as it relates to satellite applica-tions; operational data collection/processing systems; and informationmanagement services.

Demonstrated experience in operational scientific program planning and policydevelopment, in particular, those areas which support satellite technologyassessment, observing systems engineering development, implementation and/oroperations, data quality, system design or information system management.

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Please contact Karen Tower at 301/713-0530, x 106 for an announcementpackage (Internet: address: dede.epstein@noaa.gov), including mailing

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multiple operators to provide theglobal coverage or capacity re-quired to meet the DoD’s needs.Yet, the satellite operator’s pri-mary business mission is to selltheir own capacity first — at thehighest possible price and in thegreatest amount possible. Andwhen the operators can’t satisfyparticular coverage capacity re-quirements, they too must buyand integrate bandwidth fromothers. By inserting the DSTS-Gprime contractor integrators inthe process as honest brokers ofbandwidth and as providers of en-gineered solutions, the govern-ment has ensured the best end-to-

end solutions — at the lowest pos-sible cost.

The two-tier competitiveprocess has lowered the carriersmargins, and the satellite opera-tors would like to see DSTS-G justgo away. This will not happen aslong as well-informed governmentdecision-makers continue to rec-ognize DSTS-G as a best practiceprocurement process that pro-vides the government and the U.Staxpayer, with the lowest cost, bestvalue commercial Satcomsolutions for our nation’s military.

Mary Ann ElliottChairman of the Board

Arrowhead Global SolutionsFalls Church, Va.

LETTERS FROM PAGE 18

Jean-Marc Nasr arrived at Spot Image in 2001, a time when thecompany was reeling from rapid changes in the global Earthobservation market that he says threatened Spot’s existence.Four years later, the Toulouse, France-based company has re-

structured its business model to feature channel partnershipsthat grant companies exclusive rights to sell Spot imagery in ex-change for guaranteed annual revenues. It has permitted Spot toreduce its staff, particularly in the United States, and to concen-trate its sales efforts where there are no partnerships.

The Spot 5 satellite has met its backers’ expectations of offer-ing relatively high ground resolution without sacrificing swathwidth. The satellite collects imagery at ground resolutions of 2.5meters and 5 meters.

Nasr, who left Spot Image in July to take up a new post insidethe EADS group, spoke recently with Space News staff writer PeterB. de Selding.

PROFILE Jean-Marc Nasr

Switching toPartnerships for

Profitability

FORMER CHAIRMANSPOT IMAGE

SPACE NEWS22

August 8, 2005

How were sales in 2004, and how would you characterizeSpot Image’s financial condition?

Revenues in 2004 were 56.5 million euros ($77 millionusing Dec. 31, 2004, conversion rate), a 13 percent in-crease over 2003. And at constant exchange rates, saleswould have been 58 million euros. The dollar’s weak-ness in 2004 hurt us. Our U.S. business accounted for6.3 million euros, and our Chinese business — re-member the yuan is pegged to the dollar — was about6 million euros. We have nearly doubled our sales inthe past four years. The company has never beenstronger.

And profitability?

We were profitable in 2004, and we are distributing adividend to shareholders — our first one since 1999and the crisis years. The dividend is modest, about 1.40euros per share, for a total payout of 200,000 euros.But it’s symbolically important for us.

How does 2005 look?

Revenues for the first six months of the year are about40 percent higher than what they were for the same pe-riod a year ago. So it’s a good start for the year.

The French space agency, CNES, finances the constructionand launch of the Spot satellites. It also operates the satel-lites in orbit and provides some ground-network mainte-nance. How much does Spot Image pay for this?

The maintenance contract we have with CNES hasbeen substantially revised. In 2005 we are paying 7.5million euros for the service, compared to 3.4 millioneuros in 2004. So as of 2005, we are paying the full costof the CNES maintenance and operations services. Weare getting closer to financial independence.

Is it fair to say that the Spot 5 satellite, launched in May2002, saved the company?It’s not far off. We were boxed in by the U.S. govern-ment decision to offer basically free access to Landsat

low-resolution imagery, and the U.S. government deci-sion to permit global commercial sales of high-resolu-tion imagery. We couldn’t compete with free images atthe low-resolution end, and we had no product to com-pete with the emerging U.S. companies offering high-resolution data.

And if Spot 5 had failed at launch?

We would have been in serious trouble. Certainly thepossibility was there that the company would shutdown, or be absorbed by CNES.

If Spot 5 has been such a success, why didn’t you use to-day’s low-interest-rate environment to take out a loan tolaunch another high-resolution satellite on your own?

I am convinced that the day we can do that is fast ap-proaching. We couldn’t have afforded another Spot 5,but in the past couple of years, EADS Astrium has beendesigning and selling high-resolution satellites that aremuch less expensive. Look at Formosat-2 for Taiwan,and Theos for Thailand.

One of my real regrets is leaving Spot Image beforewe were able to purchase our own satellite. But it’s go-ing to happen, and it will prove wrong the people whothought there is no sustainable business model in sell-ing Earth observation satellite data.

CNES is leading development of the two Pleiades high-reso-lution optical imaging satellites, to be launched in 2008 and2009. Could you take advantage of this development andorder a third Pleiades for yourselves?

This is something we’re looking at, but we still havesome time before we need to decide. In any event,Pleiades — Spot will be the commercial sales agent,even if contract details have not been finalized withCNES — is going to be a great addition to our productline.

CNES and other French government interests own nearly 43percent of your equity, with EADS at 40.1 percent, Alcatel at

7.1 percent and the Swedish Space Corp. at 6.7 percent. Willthis mix need to change if Spot is going to act more like acommercial company?It’s possible. CNES has said it is willing to reduce itsshareholding to a low level, perhaps even to zero, nowthat we are paying full price for the CNES mainte-nance services. EADS has said it is willing to become amajority shareholder. These things take time.

You have won the rights to market imagery from Formosat2, the former Rocsat 2, outside Taiwan and China. What’sthe appeal of this satellite for you?Formosat 2 is in an unusual orbit for an Earth obser-vation satellite in that it is low inclination, passing overthe same swath of Earth with each orbit. It offers a dai-ly revisit of very interesting places — the whole of theMiddle East and North Africa, most of Asia, and it canswivel up to 45 degrees to either side quickly. We havevery high hopes for sales from this satellite.

Korea’s Kompsat-2, or Arirang 2, is set for launch later thisyear. Are you going after rights to market that outside Korea? We certainly are and we are not alone. There is a fair-ly heated competition going on now between us andsome of our competitors over who will have the distri-bution rights for Kompsat-2.

Besides your channel-partnership policy and the arrival ofSpot 5, what has changed to make you so optimistic aboutSpot’s future?

It’s several things. First is that we finally have enoughsatellites in orbit — not just Spot, but the U.S. compa-nies, plus the Asian satellites — to offer a good revisittime. Image freshness matters just as much as sharp-ness, especially for some government users. Then youadd the fact that satellite prices have come way down.And more recently, the non-governmental commercialmarket and Internet-related applications are arrivingfast. A short while ago I visited Google to discuss busi-ness. That certainly wouldn’t have happened fouryears ago.

AFPPHOTO

http://www.orbital.com