India Seeking Outside Collaboration on High-throughput Satellite

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said. 

Credit: Photo courtesy of Indian government

The Indian government wants a high-throughput satellite generating at least 100 gigabits-per-second in orbit within five years and is seeking international partners in its development, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said.

If pursued, the project would mark a rare opportunity for foreign suppliers to crack India’s mainly closed satellite telecommunications market, which in any case has shown signs of opening in the past year.

“We are looking for international cooperation in this area,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said in an address to the 65th International Astronautical Congress in Toronto (IAC 2014).

ISRO, with collaboration from domestic companies, builds its own satellites and operates them for its own account, and then acts as India’s telecommunications regulator with respect to pricing and market access by non-Indian satellite fleet operators.

International collaboration on Satellite Communications Systems is a normal part of the Space Industry and provides the most cost effective solution for countries.

Rapid technological advancements and the provision of advanced communications would be readily supported and used to great advantage by India's technologically astute corporations.

For India, the question will be whether to adopt a satellite broadband model such as in the United States, where Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat Inc. own their own satellites, build consumer broadband terminals and sell the service; or to purchase competing technologies.

Maryland-based Hughes Communications, owned by EchoStar Corp., Colorado, has long targeted India as a market ripe for consumer broadband.

The Hughes Comms' SPACEWAY 3 satellite, built by Boeing Satellite Systems International, Inc., was successfully launched on August 14, 2007 by Arianespace and is in its permanent geosynchronous orbital slot of 95° West longitude. 

Credit: Hughes Comms

Hughes has recently purchased Ka-band capacity on a satellite being built for fleet operator Eutelsat of Paris for a consumer broadband project in Brazil.

Thales Alenia Space Seeks Wider Market for Iridium EliteBus Bus

EliteBus is the platform being used by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the 81-satellite Iridium Next constellation. The first two 800-kilogram Iridium Next satellites are scheduled for launch in February 2015.

Thales Alenia Space is looking for a wider market for the satellite platform it has developed for the Iridium Next low-orbiting mobile communications satellites, with the first intended customer being the French Defense Ministry for an electronics-intelligence satellite, Thales Alenia Space officials said March 20.

In a briefing here during the Satellite 2013 conference, company officials said they are making a joint proposal with (EADS) Astrium Satellites to French defense forces for the Ceres satellite, which is the only major military space program on the horizon in France.

French government authorities have yet to determine a military program law and related budget for 2014 and the following years.

 A white paper on proposed military spending priorities is expected to be released by the French administration, which arrived in office in mid-2012, in the coming weeks.

Thales Alenia Space Chief Executive Jean-Loic Galle said his company and Astrium have agreed on a division of authority under which Thales Alenia Space will provide its EliteBus, and the Ceres electronics-intelligence payload, with Astrium Satellites handling the satellite’s integration.

EliteBus is the platform being used by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the 81-satellite Iridium Next constellation. The first two 800-kilogram Iridium Next satellites are scheduled for launch in February 2015.

Galle said the Iridium production line has given the company the opportunity to offer exceptionally low prices for satellites using the same platform, or bus, but for different applications.

Ceres is one example, but there are multiple other applications in low and medium Earth orbit for the platform.

EliteBus weighs up to 435 kilograms, not including fuel, with a payload that can weigh up to 500 kilograms. There are 2 kilowatts of on-board power.

Galle said the Iridium program is going so well that the manufacturer and the US owner, Iridium Communications, have agreed to move up the inaugural launch of two satellites by about two months, to February 2015.

Cosmo-SkyMed

Thales Alenia Space, which is majority-owned by defense electronics manufacturer Thales Group of France and minority-owned by Italian aerospace giant Finmeccanica, is awaiting the Italian government’s decision on a second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed radar Earth observation satellite system.

The contract, to be valued at more than 400 million euros, had been expected in late 2012 but fell victim to the Italian elections and, more importantly, the company’s aggravated public-finance crisis.

Luigi Pasquali, Thales Alenia Space’s deputy chief executive and the head of the company’s Italian division, said the Cosmo-SkyMed contract is now expected in the coming weeks, and will be for two satellites to start.

Russia's FSB seeking Israeli drones to Patrol Borders

Russia's Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB, is reportedly negotiating with Israel to purchase advanced unmanned aerial vehicles for border surveillance amid a torrent of complaints by the military about the poor quality of Russian-built drones.

Russian business newspaper Kommersant reports that the security service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, seeks at least five high-performance Orbiter UAVs from Israel's Aeronautics Defense Systems.

Israel is a world leader in developing and manufacturing advanced UAVs. Its military forces have used them extensively for surveillance of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and in Lebanon, its northern neighbor.

It has also used missile-armed UAVs for airstrikes, including the assassination of militant leaders on both fronts in recent years.

The Orbiter has a silent electric motor that reduces detection from the ground. It can carry a payload -- video cameras and transmitters -- of around 3.5 pounds at a maximum altitude of around 8,500 feet for two to three hours.

"That the FSB should express interest in UAVs is not surprising," according to the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, which monitors global security issues.

"There are a number of locations where they would enhance border security, ranging from the Russian-Kazakh border to potential conflict zones such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia as well as in the North Caucasus.

"The deterioration in the security situation in the North Caucasus is undoubtedly a factor in the timing of the FSB initiative, since special services are at the forefront of combating the rising tide of insurgency."

The wraps are off Kepler

NASA's planet hunting Kepler telescope launched March 6. Before it can find planets, its protective dust cover had to be jettisoned. that has been done, NASA announced yesterday.

"The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This is a critical step toward answering a question that has come down to us across 100 generations of human history â€" are there other planets like Earth, or are we alone in the galaxy?"

Kepler's mission is to spend more than three years gazing at more than 100,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy for signs of Earth-size planets. Some of the planets are expected to orbit in a star's "habitable zone," a warm region where water could pool on the surface.

The mission's science instrument, called a photometer, contains the largest camera ever flown in space. Its 42 charge-coupled devices (CCDs) will detect slight dips in starlight, which occur when planets passing in front of their stars partially block the light from Kepler's view.