Satellite News

Mobile satellite services provider Thuraya said achieved a milestone last week when engineers made the world’s first high-speed Internet connection using a handheld satellite phone.

iDirect Technologies (iDirect), a company of Vision Technologies Systems Inc., announced their new spread spectrum technology at AFCEA LandWarNet Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.

Boeing , in conjunction with Hughes Network Systems, LLC, has successfully demonstrated the space-based delivery of MP-3 files, a streaming video multi-cast and voice over Internet protocol services to a U.S. government audience, validating key elements of the Boeing communications approach for the Transformational Satellite Communications Space Segment (TSAT SS) programme.

Six Russian companies have submitted bids to build a replacement for BelKa, Belapan news agency reported.

The South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology said it will launch its first Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) in December 2008.

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that the company-built Optus D1 geosynchronous (GEO) communications satellite has been delivered to the space launch complex in Kourou, French Guiana, where it is scheduled to be launched aboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket in September along with DirecTV 9S.

Alliant Techsystems has received a five-year, US$22 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop automated composite technologies designed to reduce the manufacturing costs, and increase the performance of large composite launch vehicle structures.

The launch of NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) aboard a Delta II has been postponed to no earlier than 18 September.