“Sic transit Gloria mundi”
All things, even glorious, must pass
DIRECTV launched their Spaceway F2 satellite today from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The new satellite, combined with the Spaceway F1 satellite, will enable DIRECTV to provide local HD channels to customers in 36 major markets, or more than 57 percent of U.S. television households, by early next year.
Spaceway 1 was placed in orbit in late April. The satellites will support the rollout of up to 500 local HD channels. DIRECTV will offer local HD broadcast channels in 12 cities by the end of this year and 24 cities early next year.
Spaceway F1 began transmitting local HD signals to customers in Detroit on Oct. 20, and four markets — Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and San Francisco — will begin receiving local HD broadcast channels this month. DIRECTV will also launch HD locals in Tampa, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New York in December.
The Spaceway satellites will be joined by two more next-generation spacecraft, DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11, in 2007, and together they will deliver more than 1,500 local and 150 national HD channels to DIRECTV customers nationwide.
U.S. cable operators have over 73 million TV subscribers, generating revenues of nearly $60 billion per annum,” says Analysys, a research firm. DirecTV, the nation’s largest satellite broadcaster, has more than 15 million customers while EchoStar serves more than 11.71 million satellite TV customers through its DISH Network.
DirecTV may also provide WiMax at 5.8 GHz with WiNetworks. DirecTV could then offer “quad play” services, competing with cable (or phone companies).
DirecTV Killed the Two-Way Spaceway concept. They were originally designed to provide 2-way spot beam internet access nationwide. When Rupert Murdock took over operation of DirecTV last year that concept was jetisoned. Satellite delivered internet access was deemed less profitable that HDTV delivery so the satellites went back to the shop for a rework.
In 2007, according to Space Today, Hughes plans to move 2-way DirecWay internet access service, currently using Ku band (12/14 GHz), to Spaceway F3 using Ka band (20/30 GHz) spot beams.
Ka band internet access, however, is alive and well using WildBlue which provides satellite-based internet access for as low as $49/month with a $300 satellite terminal.
WildBlue uses the Ka-band Anik F2 satellite. WildBlue Internet access began this summer. WildBlue’s CEO Tom Moore, say’s the company’s goal is to have a product that is equivalent–both in terms of monthly pricing and performance to DSL or cable modems.
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With a fleet of eight Ku-band DBS satellites - EchoStar I through EchoStar VIII - Echostar Communications Corp. is now adding Ka-band capacity via hybrid FSS Ka-/Ku-band satellites, starting with EchoStar IX, built by Loral, at 121 West, according to Northern Sky (pdf).
Echostar has two additional Lockheed Martin A2100 Ka-band satellites on order, with completion expected during 2008. Both could allow Dish Network to offer other value-added services including two-way broadband and video - with the emphasis on optional.
Echostar is leasing one entire polarity of the dual Ka-band payloads on a pair of SES Americom hybrid Ka-/Ku-band satellites, AMC-15 at 105 and AMC-16 at 85. Both of these designated Americom2Home satellites are A2100AXs built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems and equipped with twelve 125 MHz Ka- band spotbeams powered by 75-watt TWTAs, along with their Ku-band payloads.
DirecTV’s Spaceway F2, the broadcast satellite launched this week, is a Boeing-built 702 model and was carried into space by an Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle. It will provide commercial service at 99.2 degrees West Longitude (WL), one of the Ka-band orbital slots that DIRECTV will use to transmit local digital and HD signals via spot beam to its customers.
Spaceway F2 is identical to the Spaceway F1 satellite, launched April 26 from the Sea Launch platform. It has commenced commercial operations from the 102.8-degree WL orbital slot.
Sea Launch announced a launch contract with DIRECTV, today, for a mission scheduled in early 2007. The contract includes an option for an additional launch. Sea Launch successfully delivered the Spaceway 1 satellite to orbit, on April 26, 2005. Earlier launches include the DIRECTV 7S satellite on May 4, 2004, and the DIRECTV 1R satellite on October 9, 1999.
DirecTV8, a high- power direct broadcast satellite (DBS) built by Space Systems/Loral, is a Ku/Ka-band hybrid, which will use the full 1,000 MHz of Ka-band communications bandwidth available. It was launched earlier this year (video) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Proton M/Breeze M launch vehicle provided by International Launch Services (ILS). DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11, to be built by Boeing, will be among the largest and most powerful Ka-band satellites ever launched. By 2007, DirecTV plans to implement MPEG-4 AVC via Ka-band satellites in three orbital slots to deliver more than 1,500 local and 150 national HD channels to DIRECTV customers nationwide. In orbit spares will provide redundancy.
Three companies have stated plans to serve the IPTV via satellite “headend in the sky”: SES Americom with IP Prime; Broadstream; and Globecast/Eagle Broadband (channel guide on right). They plan to wholesale the television feed to rural telcos who can then deliver the signals by DSL. SBC and Verizon have similar plans for urban dwellers.
The advantage over DBS is interactive and on demand content and no dish. Nevertheless, geosynchronous satellites over the Americas are proliferating.
SkyTerra bought half of HNS, (Hughes Network Systems), a wholly owned subsidiary of The DIRECTV Group. HNS retained ownership of Spaceway F3 (for 2-way internet). A launch in 2006 is planned, with high-speed, broadband satellite services for all markets commencing in 2007.
Meanwhile SkyTerra also backs next gen satellite phone company, Mobile Satellite Ventures which plans an end run around cellular operators by using their same Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) spectrum terrestrially though repeaters. Cellular operators think this kind of double dipping — reusing the the MSS spectrum at 2.1 GHz — is unfair. They apparently lost their argument before the FCC.
Jeffrey Leddy’s dream, ever since his Bell Lab days 25 years ago, has been to build a wristwatch satellite phone that enables everyone, everywhere, to communicate affordably. That vision, always just a few years away, now could come true. In just a few years.
But what about the other end?
El Segundo-based SpaceX hopes to make its commercial launch service debut with this month’s planned space shot. The firm has spent about three years developing a family of Falcon boosters to grow from its Falcon 1 design and Merlin rocket engine. It will carry a FalconSat-2 (photo), built by cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy “to measure space plasma”.
If successful, the initial SpaceX launch will be followed in March 2006 with the second Falcon 1 launch carrying the TacSat-1 satellite built by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation. Leading SpaceX is Elon Musk, a native of South Africa who amassed a fortune as co-founder of PayPal. SpaceX filed a lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed Martin accusing the aerospace companies of violating antitrust laws for U.S. government launch services.
Through their Kwajalein launch site on Omelek Island, SpaceX is the only US heavy lift provider with an equatorial launch location.
A total of 44 countries have accessed space through an independent launch capability or the launch capabilities of others. Surrey Satellite Technology of the UK has enabled seven countries to build their first civil satellite over the last 12 years.
Professor Robert Twiggs (right) of Stanford’s Space Systems Development Laboratory, got there first with his CubeSat.
SpaceDev’s CHIPSat, was the world’s first orbiting node on the Internet. Their new MMB-100 microsat is a 220 pound microsatellite using standard Ethernet and USB connections. The SpaceDev MMB-100 can be commanded from the ground via the Internet. Cost: $10 million, not including integration and launch.
CLEO (Cisco in Low Earth Orbit) is based on Cisco’s 3251 Mobile Access Router Card, typically used to connect police cars and ambulances on the ground. It’s in orbit, onboard the UK-DMC satellite. And it works.
Related DailyWireless stories include Spaceway 1 Launched, DirecTV Kills Two-Way Spaceway, DirecTV Bites $1.6B, Spot Beam Satellite Launched, Rainbow 1 Launched, Voom Sold, Mobile Satellite Access, Pacific Satellites Fail, Inmarsat Launches Spotbeam Satellite, WildBlue Launches, Spaceway Retrogrades, Blogging On The Road, Mobile Satellite Access, Multiuser Satellite Access, C-SPAN Celebrates 25, MPEG-4: Satellite, Cable & Wireless, Sharing A Satellite Van, Satellite Wi-Fi, Chapter 11 in Space, Rupert’s World, and Satellite News Gathering.
Fifteen years of watching teachers etch chalk on blackboards, watching black minute hands on round white faces tick, sitting on plastic, writing on that amoeba-like blob of formica protruding out from the vicinity of my cramped right elbow, feet planted on Linoleum.
Eyes fixed on Linoleum - decades honing eye contact avoidance. I open the final exam book - there’s only one question - Design a microsatellite system to fight terrorism.
My eyes trace the fine lines which separate the Linoleum squares and I wonder about Linoleum - anything is better, more interesting, more tractable, than another three hour exam…
from Microspace Vs Terror.
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