Really Rocket Science

Virgil interviews Bunke and Martos at Satellite 2013.

Rob Bednarek passed into the next life over the weekend.

Mr. Bednarek had been an industry innovator and leader for over 30 years and held a bunch of U.S. patents related to Global Positioning System (GPS). Mr. Bednarek led entrepreneurial organizations, major public and private companies including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PanAmSat. As the engineering and technology leader for PanAmSat, he was instrumental in the success of the world’s first competitive international satellite operator before its acquisition by Intelsat.

He joined SES in 2002 to run corporate development, where his tit-for-tat emails with Dean O. became legendary. In 2006 he was rewarded with the title president and CEO of SES NewSkies (changed to WorldSkies in 2009). Under his management, NewSkies swallowed Americom to become SES WorldSkies. His leadership was recognized not only for his management and technology strengths, but also for the dignity and respect with which he treated his clients, peers, colleagues, and co-workers.

R.I.P.

Nice job, Arianespace!

The mission was carried out by an Ariane 5 ECA launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff was on Friday, September 28, 2012 at 6:18 pm local time in Kourou (5:18 pm in Washington, D.C., 21:18 UT, 11:18 pm in Paris, and on Saturday, September 29 at 2:48 am in Bangalore).

ASTRA 2F. Built by Astrium using a Eurostar E3000 platform, ASTRA 2F weighed 6,000 kg at launch. Fitted with active Ku- and Ka-band transponders, ASTRA 2F will be positioned at 28.2 degrees East. It will deliver new-generation DTH TV broadcast services to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and offers a design life of about 15 years.

GSAT-10. Designed, assembled and integrated by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore, southern India, GSAT-10 weighed about 3,400 kg at launch and offers a design life exceeding 15 years. The satellite is fitted with 18 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders. Positioned at 83 degrees East, it will provide direct-to-home broadcasting, weather and radio-navigation services. Its coverage zone encompasses the entire Indian sub-continent.

SES and Astrium put together a video of how and why a spacecraft gets built, launched and operated.

Here’s the short version…

And here’s the long version…

Want to see the raw footage? Yeah, that’s here, too…

Back in 2007, SES and GE worked out a deal that included GE getting back into the satellite operator business. Well, not really an operator — just an owner of an orbiting spacecraft. They called it “GE Satellite” and continued to employ a bunch of people who were selling it. To make that deal work, GE had to have title of the asset (the GE-23 spacecraft) for five years.

Did you do the math? It’s been five years all right. Earlier today, news came out that Eutelsat was buying the asset from GE Capital, which never bothered to list it as part of their many businesses since they knew it was only a matter of time before it went away.

Good day at the office for GE Capital (again) in getting a bunch of cash and good for Eutelsat for getting an asset and an orbital slot over the Pacific Ocean Region (POR). One of the key customers is the U.S. government and Connexion by Boeing, which is still around to provide satcom services to airliners such as Air Force One. Other than that, there’s not much on that bird.

The 20 channels available in the Ku-band is divided among five beams, which was good for the Boeing service, but not really all that workable for standard satellite customers. It was not an easy sell — except for GE Capital.

Thanks to PixelPusher for sending this over a couple of weeks ago.

We used to joke “people need to know how to spell satellite” before they can do marketing or p.r. work for us. Maybe the satellite folks should learn how to spell “possibility” — or at the very least learn how to proofread their ads before they’re submitted for publishing.

The above ad, which really doesn’t say much, ran on the cover wrap of the 16 January 2012 issue of Multichannel News, opposite a lead story on DISH Network (a big wholesale customer for SES in North America).

At least they know to run a satellite business. Nice launch from Baikonur, and successfully separating SES-4. In this Russian video, they refer to SES-4 as “the Dutch satellite.”

In their “boilerplate,” they write “SES stands for long-lasting business relationships, high-quality service and excellence in the broadcasting industry.” Us rocket scientist know SES actually stands for “Société Européenne des Satellites” and that they’re based in the Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), not Holland.

Convenient launch window for QuetzSat-1 launch on Friday, and you can watch it live from the Baikonur Cosmodrome via Proton/Briz-M on 29 September 2011 @ 18:32 GMT (00:32 a.m. local time on 30 September 2011; 20:32 p.m. CEST, 14:32 p.m. EDT).

In North America, DISH Network Channel 101, and via C-band on AMC-3 at 87 degrees West, C4, downlink frequency 3780.0 MHz, vertical polarization, service ID 136201.

In Europe, Astra 19.2 degrees East, transponder 1.037, downlink frequency 11023.25 MHz, horizontal polarization, symbol rate 22.0 MSym/s, FEC 5/6, service ID 5232, service name QuetzSat-1 Launch.

A webcast is available via ILS Launch, beginning 20 minutes prior to launch window opening.

Go QuetzSat. Go Proton.

You put in three years of work into designing, planning and building a spacecraft. You test, test and test again. You select a dependable launch vehicle and schedule it. Lots of time and money goes into this kind of rocket science.

Final campaign begins and then, 30 days later, it’s launch day. Attendez une minute! The Union des Travailleurs Guyanais (UTG) decides to strike. That’s right: the Trade Union of French Guiana Workers has caused Arianespace to postpone the launch indefinitely.

The Trade Union of French Guiana Workers (UTG) initiated a strike within the TELESPAZIO company making unavailable certain means of measurement in the Space Center which are absolutely necessary for an Ariane launch. Consequently, Arianespace and CNES have decided to adjourn the launch.

Pay them what they want and get on with it! Somebody at Telespazio France is gonna get slapped.

No Borat jokes. This is serious space business. Last Friday’s successful launch of KazSat-2 and SES-3 aboard a Proton/Briz-M launcher was the first time with a dual payload. ILS will now be making money like Arianespace is with their two-at-a-time configuration. Here’s the video…

Read the summary on Caspionet. You’d think Borat did the translation:

On the threshold of the launch, the governmental delegation headed by the Prime Minister Karim Massimov arrived at the space-launching site. For the first time people enjoyed the launch online via Twitter.

The launch of the Proton-M expendable launch system, which happened on Saturday morning, is a historic launch. This is because in the near future Kazakhstan will be able to use a modern and reliable communication satellite. The Russian side and especially producers of the satellite, the Khrunichev space centre said that the KazSat-2 satellite will serve at least 12 years. The project witnessed several revisions from the moment of signing the agreement on the creation of the satellite. As a result, the KazSat-2 satellite received completely new hardware components and a new management algorithm. It also became more energy intensive and the number of transmitters increased to 20. The total capacity of transmitter-responders increased to 4.5 kilowatts, which will help to process larger amounts of data.

Yes, rocket scientists: “enjoyed the launch via Twitter!”

SES-3 is set to replace AMC-1 (formerly GE-1), the very first A2100 spacebus built by Lockheed Martin. It will be interesting to see how customers adapt to the Ku-band side not having the polarization offset (26° counter-clockwise).

After the bloodbath at SES this spring, followed by a new management scheme announced at the beginning of May, it was inevitable they’d lose some of their star performers. Anders Johnson was one of them and he just joined EchoStar Satellite Services…

EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), the premier global provider of satellite operations and digital TV solutions, announced today that Anders Johnson has joined EchoStar as President of EchoStar Satellite Services, reporting directly to Michael Dugan, Chief Executive Officer and President of EchoStar.

“Anders brings us a wealth of experience in global satellite spectrum development, international markets, satellite financing and investment, which will help us in continuing to develop our satellite services business as well as working with myself and Hughes management to develop and implement our international expansion strategy,” said Mr. Dugan.

Mr. Johnson was most recently at SES World Skies where he served as Senior Vice-President, Strategic Satellite Development since 2005. Prior to SES, Anders worked at GE from 1985 in a variety of executive level roles including Satellite Services, Aviation Services and Transportation & Industrial Financing.

He also graduated from New York Tech and worked for Manny Hanny.