Posts Tagged ‘ses’

Adieu GE-23, Bonjour Eutelsat 172A

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

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.

SES Stands for Typos

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

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.


QuetzSat Launch

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

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.


UTG en grève!

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

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.


Oh da baby!

Monday, July 18th, 2011


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).


Another Star Joins EchoStar

Monday, June 27th, 2011

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.

Africa’s Digital Future: DTH Satellite

Friday, June 10th, 2011


Nice pitch from SES Astra’s Christoph Limmer in Balancing Act on the digital transition in Africa. Timed to coincide with a recent deal in Kenya, and the SatCom Africa 2011 show in J-burg, the points made are typical and correct, including…

According to Christoph Limmer, requests for information on satellite TV are flooding in. “Quite often we get asked if satellite can really reach more homes than other infrastructures like cable or terrestrial. The answer simply, is yes. Unlike DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) or cable which are ground based infrastructures and normally roll-out in certain areas only; satellite has no limitations in achieving 100% population reach.” Digging cable is costly and time consuming and rolling out DTT network infrastructure is facing similar challenges.

However, one must first assume there is electrical power availability and somebody to pay for the service. Advertiser-supported content needs an audience that’s able to pay for their products/services. What I think needs to happen is the satellite operators take the hit and get the service going and wait for the market to catch up.

The developing world needs our help. Get on with it!

Americom Pie

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

 

 

 

A couple of years ago, the Americom name went away. That’s when owner SES S.A., having bought out GE’s stake via a creative asset & cash transaction, decided to combine Americom’s Princeton-based operation with the New Skies organization in Den Haag. All got mashed up into a thing called SES WorldSkies.  A dozen employees were let go, including yours truly. All of them in the U.S.

Recently, just prior to the Satellite 2011 show in Washington, a call went out from Betzder Schlass, headquarters for SES S.A., that the companies are slated for a re-org and “right sizing.” Yeah, heads were going to roll. Officially, it was not about “headcount,” only a justification of expenses. The networking among long-time U.S. employees immediately preceding this news was darkly startling: never have I seen more activity from former Americom colleagues on LinkedIn.com.

Ironically, the corporate rattling started just as the Society of Satellite Professionals International announced their 12th induction into the SSPI Hall of Fame. Three of the seven inductees were past CEOs of SES Americom: Dean Olmstead, Ed Horowitz and Rob Bednarek.

To many “old pros,” this wasn’t really news. They’ve seen the writing on the wall and concluded there would be less and less people running the business in the U.S., with the possibility of shutting down the Princeton office once the lease expired in 2014.  Earlier this month, a couple of dozen people lost their jobs, the lion’s share in New Jersey. Some were happy to “get a package” and move on, others not so much.

The office in Den Haag will likely be shut down, with most of the jobs moving to Luxembourg. Princeton jobs will likely be moved to Washington. Remaining will be token offices to satisfy licensing requirements.

What does this say about the state of the satellite business in the U.S.? Are EchoStar and DirecTV the only true American commercial satellite operators? Both SES and Intelsat are based in Luxembourg, Telesat’s based in Ottawa, Canada, and Eutelsat’s in Paris. And they’ve all benefited from the U.S. government’s need for satellite bandwidth in the Middle East and Central Asia (Iraq & Afghanistan). How much of the profits from U.S. sources, commercial and government, are used toward economic benefit in the U.S.? Perhaps a few satellite builds with Space Systems/Loral and Orbital Sciences.

Makes for an interesting argument. Bring it.

Yo?! Yah!

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Can you imagine what the satellite owners were going through when this launch was aborted on the pad?!? Watch…

24 hours later, no problem. Phew…

Satcom’s Responsibility

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

The scale of the disaster in Japan, who some have compared to “four Katrinas,” is as mind-boggling today as it was a week ago. The automatic reaction in the satcom community was one of “ready, set, go” — let’s get our satcom systems turned up to help with communications efforts. The ITU cobbled together a bunch of satellite phones and terminals, et. al. as quickly as it could…

Among material already deployed are 78 Thuraya satellite phones equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to facilitate search and rescue efforts, along with 13 Iridium satellite phones and 37 Inmarsat Broadband Global Area Network terminals. An additional 30 Inmarsat terminals are ready for dispatch. The equipment can be charged by car batteries and are supplied with solar panels to enable operations during power outages.

This may seem as if it’s not nearly enough to help, but you should also consider the response inside Japan. Only yesterday did the Ofunato City Hall get a much-needed satcom connection via the KIKU No. 8 (ETS-VIII) mobile satellite system…

On March 24, JAXA set up a ground antenna and the movable test communication terminal for the KIKU No. 8 at the Ofunato City Hall to connect the communication line of up to 768 Kbps between the City Hall and the Tsukuba Space Center via KIKU No. 8 in cooperation with the National Institution of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) based on a request from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which received a petition from Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture.

With this communication line installation, Ofunato City Hall workers began collecting information by PCs through the Internet. Apart from city hall, local fire departments and other offices can also now use the Internet and IP telephones to share information for strengthening their cooperative activities.

In addition, as one of the special features of the KIKU No. 8 is communications with a small movable test terminal, which was installed at Ofunato City, information dispatch from evacuation centers and other places through the Internet became possible, because it is easy to move around and install it. Therefore, the connection this time is expected to further contribute to a smooth recovery from the disaster.

Simply getting these terminals out to where they were needed took time — and to find power sources. Most can be powered by a car battery, but they weren’t easy to find. Having a handheld unit is wonderful, until you need to recharge. As many found during last winter’s storm and subsequent power outages in the U.S., you could maintain your Internet connection/communication with an iPhone — only you’d be charging it in your car. In Japan, you car may have been washed away or buried under tons of debris, miles away. So that’s not an option.

Nobody could have predicted this type of utter destruction of property and the communications and power-transmission systems failures. The challenge of preparing satcom systems to respond effectively is to make sure there’s capacity available to meet the demand. As with the REDiSat Network, developed by SES Americom in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006, nobody wants to pay for capacity that’s not needed. Full-time customers are ready to today, so they fill up the spectrum for their businesses. You can’t simply bump them to make room for emergencies when they have hundreds of customers depending on it for their livelihood.

That’s when the government needs to step in and  help foot the bill. Help the satcom operators keep satcom inventory ready to deploy in case of emergency, only not at the target 80% EBITDA margins. A reluctance to part with capacity at a lower profit margin caused the  REDiSat Network to fade away. Designing, building, testing, launching and operating a satcom spacecraft is expensive and they do serve the public well.

Broadcasters’ reliance on — and willingness to pay for — satcom systems is a wonderful arrangement.  It’s magic: an infinite number of receivers for video and a good source of cash flow for the satellite operators. Keeps a lot of rocket scientists employed, too.  As good corporate citizens, shouldn’t some of the profits be set aside to provide satcom capacity when needed?

I’m sure the accountants can find a way to pay for it.

Anybody who has capacity available in the region is likely booking it for TV news. Only SKY Perfect JSAT has any meaningful response (opens in PDF) …

As a measure for supporting post-disaster recovery, we are allocating necessary transponders capacity to anti-disaster organs, etc. and preparing for aid measure one by one. At present, the number of applications for subscription is increasing steeply. We are dealing with it as follows: For recovery assistance, we will immediately conduct what we can do with our communication satellite. We hope that the devasted area will be restored soon.

About the use of satellite communication services

  • We will first distribute transponders to the institutions for post-disaster recovery, such as National Police Agency, the Ministry of Defense, related ministries, Telecommunication carriers and the U.S. military.
  • As for the use of bands by electric power companies, including TohokuElectric Power, we will assist them proactively and give priority to them to allocate the cacant bands of Superbird-B2 owned by SKY Perfect JSAT
  • As for the steep increase in the use by media organizations, we will deal with it thoroughly, and as for new subscriptions, we will allocate the band of JCSAT-5A, which has some room.

Where are the “we’re helping” press releases from the major satcom players?