Satellite Tech Expert

The Russians are coming…to provide more television capacity to the Americas.

WIth the need for broadband and television networking coverage increasing exponentially in the high-growth Latin America region especially, a raft of providers like SES and Eutelesat have lately targeted the area with more planned satellite deployments and/or capacity. The Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), the Russian state satellite operator, has decided to get into the action.

RSCC is partnering with its EMEA distributor, VSAT provider Romantis Group, to bring a joint solution to North/South America and the transatlantic area. Romantis will market RSCC’s Express-AM8 capacity. That satellite is scheduled to be launched to 14 degrees West in the third quarter of 2013.

“We are expanding our current commercial relationship with Romantis to also include the prospective Express-AM8 satellite capacity,” said RSCC Director General Yuri Prokhorov. “We always look for innovative channels to make our capacity offerings stand out from the competition.”

Romantis offers satellite bandwidth management services, network planning, link budgeting, optimization of capacity utilisation, online monitoring and troubleshooting systems as well as Web-based booking tools for planning occasional-use transmissions.

“In 2011, Romantis expanded its operations in the Americas and Asia, establishing its offices in Canada,” said Vagan Shakhgildian, president and CEO of Romantis. “We have had an overwhelming response from the leading telecom carriers, TV broadcasters and enterprise customers across [the region] for our bundled capacity and VSAT hardware packages and expect to increase our presence in the region with the help of Express-AM8 and the other RSCC satellites.”

The Express-AM8 satellite will be equipped with six high-power Ku-band and two C-band spot beams providing superior coverage of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North and South America.

http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2012032720894/russians-take-aim-at-the-americas-with-satellite.html

Federal telecommunications regulators began deliberations Wednesday on new regulations to open up satellite airwaves for more wireless phone usage and to set standards for how companies should use the airwaves in their next-generation wireless networks.

The Federal Communications Commission announced plans to develop the rules at a meeting Wednesday, saying they were necessary as part of the agency’s longer-term goal of ensuring consumers have more access to wireless data services.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the agency’s proposals Wednesday represented “a significant step in the commission’s spectrum agenda.”

The agency’s three commissioners unanimously agreed to prepare new rules on ways of allowing more flexible use of some satellite airwaves. Dish Network Corp. DISH -0.30%asked the agency to give it a waiver to use some of its satellite airwaves for a terrestrial wireless Internet service, but the agency declined earlier this month, saying that it wanted to set new rules for the entire chunk of satellite airwaves.

FCC officials are still under fire for giving wireless start-up LightSquared a conditional waiver that would have allowed it to build a terrestrial wireless broadband service using its satellite airwaves. The agency said it would revoke that waiver earlier this year after government tests suggested LightSquared’s network would knock out global positioning system devices.

The agency also said it planned to develop rules on possible new interoperability standards for wireless phone companies using the 700 MHz band of airwaves. AT&T Corp. T -0.60%and Verizon Communications Inc.’s VZ -0.61%Verizon Wireless unit operate their new LTE wireless networks in the 700 MHz band. Smaller phone companies complain that AT&T and Verizon have worked with handset makers to ensure their devices work only on small portions of the airwaves, not the entire band. AT&T and Verizon counter that new interoperability requirements could cause interference problems.

The agency said it will consider technical rules designed to ensure future handsets to work across the band of airwaves, which would make it easier for smaller companies to offer the hottest new handsets to their customers.

Mr. Genachowski said he hoped that the wireless industry could reach voluntary interoperability standards that would make new rules unnecessary. “An industry-wide solution would be a preferable solution,” he said. “We’re launching this proceeding because no solution has yet been reached.”

Late Tuesday, the agency also said it was considering whether the FCC’s longstanding rules requiring cable operators to offer their affiliated channels to competitors is still necessary. The agency’s current program access rules are set to expire in October unless the agency renews them. Large cable companies that partially own several channels have argued the requirement is no long necessary but smaller cable providers have pushed for an extension of the current rules.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304724404577295580800235556.html

It’s not dead yet! A Russian satellite on the brink of being de-orbited could still have a second life—as communications support for scientists in        Antarctica. That’s the idea of William Readdy and Dennis Wingo, co-founders of Polar Broadband Systems Ltd., a company created last December        exclusively to repurpose the satellite for Antarctic broadband communications. With only a few days to go before Russian officials plan to begin        guiding the satellite into a controlled descent into the Pacific Ocean, Readdy and Wingo are stepping up a campaign to get the word out about their        plan and keep the satellite aloft. But it’s not clear that the Russian State Commission, which will decide the satellite’s fate this week, is        listening.

The Express-AM4 satellite launched 18 August, but mechanical failures left it in a too-low and useless orbit. The satellite was still functional, but        the Russian Satellite Communications Company’s (RSCC) chief financial officer, Dennis Pivnyuk, said last week at the Satellite 2012 conference in        Washington, D.C., that the Russian government was planning to bring it down this week after considering—and rejecting—numerous salvage plans.

But Polar Broadband Systems, which is funded by private investors, still holds out hope that they can obtain Express-AM4 and retool its orbit, Wingo        says. “We have crafted an orbit that it can easily get to … where it can provide up to almost 16 hours a day of broadband coverage over the Antarctic.”        The satellite has enough fuel for another 10 years of operation, he adds. “It will open up a plethora of new possibilities for activities in the        Antarctic—a sensor network, telemedicine; there are a tremendous number of applications enabled by this spacecraft. It increases the velocity of        science in Antarctica if they are able to send data from all kinds of different experiments in real time, versus the episodic nature they have now.” If        they can obtain the satellite, Polar Broadband Systems hopes to have it in place by the next Antarctic summer—in time for Russian scientists’ return        to Lake Vostok to collect the first sample of water from an Antarctic subglacial lake. “It could be on Russian television, live,” Wingo says.

Samsung announced today at its annual Africa Forum event, in Cape Town, that it will partner with SES to provide free satellite TV services for six countries in Africa.

In an effort to drive digitalisation, the free service will be available on select Samsung LED TVs, and will provide access to 60 free-to-air TV channels (30 English and 30 French). The TVs are fitted with built-in satellite tuners and, therefore, do not require a separate decoder.

Samsung believes satellite is driving digitalisation, and as a result, the company has signed a deal with satellite operator SES (which already covers 40 African countries) to provide the new service in supported regions.

Senior director of marketing development and marketing for Africa at SES, Christoph Limmer, says: “The opportunity lies in providing a growing sophisticated African viewership with a significantly increased number of TV channels – a first for many African countries.”

The six countries in which the service will initially be available include Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Ghana. The service will become available in the third quarter, and Samsung says it will add new channels and more regions in the following year.

According to Samsung, in Sub-Saharan Africa one in three homes have a TV set, with less than 10% with access to digital TV. Samsung’s director of consumer electronics for West Africa, Sunil Kumar, says it is important for products not to only “survive Africa”, but to be “built for Africa” specifically.

The free satellite TVs will also come with Samsung’s LED TV SurgeSafe+ technology that Samsung says is suited specifically to the African environment, protecting against humidity, lightening and electricity surges.

Regional product manager at Samsung Africa, Dae Hee Kim, says: “The large investment by Samsung into the development of these products, so that they remain affordable and competitive within the market, while not compromising quality and performance, is a key indicator of our commitment to meeting the demands of the African people.”

Samsung did not reveal the pricing details for the satellite TVs, but said they would be “affordable and competitive”.

http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52859:samsung-ses-give-africa-free-satellite-tv&catid=69

Solar storms earlier this month may have caused military satellites to reboot.

Despite being made to withstand radiation emitted from solar flares, a storm caused by the sun earlier this month may have temporarily knocked American military satellites offline, according to General William Shelton, head of the Air Force’s Space Command.
The energy particles associated with two solar storms March 9 and 10 may have caused what are called “single event upsets” on military satellites. “The timing is such that we say this was likely due to [solar radiation],” Shelton told reporters at a Defense Writers Group breakfast Thursday. Although it’s impossible to tell exactly what caused the events–essentially a temporary reboot of satellite instrumentation software–solar storms are known to wreak havoc on satellites.

“We’re very concerned about solar activity,” he said. Military satellites are “hardened [to withstand radiation], but maybe in some cases, not every part is as hard as we would like it to be.”
That’s because building a satellite to withstand solar storms is costly, which is why NASA says commercial satellites are often most vulnerable. Yihua Zheng, head of NASA’s Space Weather Services at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., says each satellite is built to withstand a different level of radiation, and that there’s a “cost-benefit analysis” to radiation hardening during a satellite’s development. Most mission-critical military satellites are built to sustain short bursts of solar radiation. Satellites “can reset and come back online.” But if the solar storm is lengthy, the damage could be severe enough that the satellite’s software won’t be able to reboot.
“Most of the satellites are built for this,” she says. “They should be OK.”
In recent years, the military has become more reliant on satellites operated by the Air Force’s Space Command, Shelton said. “Space capability is integral to everything [the military does],” he said, “from GPS targeting and communications to incoming missile warnings for our troops overseas.”
[Solar Flares Likely to Continue Pounding Earth Until 2014]
Shelton said the outages following this month’s solar storms didn’t affect any missions. “There were dire predictions preceding [these flares],” he said. “We didn’t see it to that degree.”
Zheng says NASA alerts the Air Force whenever a solar flare is incoming, and they have about 20 minutes of advance notice to de-activate sensitive instruments onboard satellites.
“They can turn sensitive instruments off as a preventative measure,” she says. “They can go into a ‘safe mode.’ Once the storm dies down, they can turn it back on.” Shelton says that NASA’s close relationship with the Air Force space command gives them good “advance notice of when a solar storm is headed our way.”
NASA says the recent wave of solar storms is only likely to intensify through the end of 2012, but Shelton believes the military’s satellites will be able to withstand any future storms.
“I don’t believe that anything–short of something truly catastrophic, that would be catastrophic to those of us on Earth as well, I don’t believe there’s a scenario where we’d wholesale lose spacecraft,” Shelton said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-201203230952usnewsusnwr201203220322flaresmar23,0,2320154.story

Faced with increasing threats of space debris, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is actively exploring ways to clean up the outer space.

Donald Kessler, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Environmental Effects Office, said the space industry has been slowly developing ideas for over 30 years on how to proceed to clean up space junk, but none has ever been fully tested.

Space debris comes from asteroids, comets, meteorites and also defunct man-made space devices or their parts.

“Dead” satellites are an example of space debris, which poses increasing risks to functional satellites and the International Space Station.

Kessler, the first chief of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, said there are three fundamental issues to be resolved in relation to the cleaning up of space junk.

“One, how do we get to the objects inexpensively? Two, how do we grab an object that is likely spinning and not designed to be grabbed? Three, what do we do with the object after grabbing it,” Kessler told Xinhua.

Another factor to consider is that astrophysicists and scientists have been slow to address the topic.

To cite a case, NASA does not annually spend any government funds with regard to the research and the cleaning up of space junk.

Size of space debris can be as small as one centimetre. Astrophysicists and scientists have difficulty putting precise definitions to “large” space debris. However, usually an object of 10 centimetres or greater is considered “large”.

International interest in cleaning up space debris has increased in recent years, especially since February 2009, when two artificial satellites collided at almost about 790 km over Siberia, creating over 1,000 pieces of space debris.

Kessler believes that an increasing frequency of collision of space junk will create “a permanent belt of space debris” that would be so thick that it would be a hazard to any attempted launched rocket or satellite.

Two current possible ideas for cleaning up space debris are the use of powerful lasers, whose projected laser beams would push the space junk into lower orbits to be burnt up, and the creation of a matrix of nets to catch some of the space junk.

Kessler, however, thinks that neither concept would be a total solution, even if they worked as planned.

Numerous companies in North America are working on various space junk clean-up projects.

One such company is the Star Technology and Research (STAR) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

STAR is the recent recipient of nearly $2 million from NASA to create a spacecraft called ElctroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE).

If successfully made and operated, EDDE would target non-functioning orbiting satellites that weigh one tonne apiece.

“EDDE will ‘sail’ on the Earth’s magnetic field like a sailing ship in the wind, giving it unlimited range, using solar power. This is the breakthrough technology that makes possible the removal of all large, dangerous debris objects in low Earth orbit. We are working to develop the components that make EDDE possible,” STAR spokesperson Jerome Pearson said.

According to the design, EDDE would “sail” to an extinct satellite, using a solar-powered six-mile long space tether line. It will then eject a large net to catch the targeted satellite, and lower itself into a lower orbit. It will fire out the caught satellite into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it would then burn up. Once EDDE ejects the satellite, it will “sail” back up into higher orbit and proceed to catch another non-operating satellite, Pearson explained.

There are more than 2,000 tonnes of debris in low Earth orbit, below the 2,000 km altitude. EDDE could catch and dispose of the larger “dead” space satellites, Pearson said.

But the main current threat to operational satellites and to the astronauts on the International Space Station is the untracked shrapnel between one and ten centimetres in size, he said.

“They are too small to track with current means, but they are large enough to destroy a satellite or puncture an ISS module.”

Pearson said the entire international satellite launch community should logically share in the burden of cleaning up space debris.

NASA’s current policies on space debris were called into question by a report released last September by the National Research Council, an affiliate of the Academy of Sciences.

“NASA should collaborate with commercial, national, and international agencies to develop more explicit information about the costs of debris avoidance, mitigation, surveillance, and response. With this information, NASA could develop a more detailed plan for long-term issues,” said the report.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_exploring_ways_to_clean_up_space_debris_999.html

Salah Hamza, CEO at Cairo-based Nilesat, speaking at the Satellite 2012 event in Washington DC, said that the jamming of satellite signals is hurting the industry very badly. “We now even have what we call voluntary self-jamming, where in order to curb unwanted signals coming into a country it seems that a nation is prepared to also lose its own signals by jamming a complete transponder.”

“We can help mitigate this for our customers by placing the jammed transmissions onto other frequencies. For the past two months we have multiple examples of deliberate jamming. This has spread to five transponders, affecting many of our clients. It is deliberate, and seems to us to be quite senseless. In some instances, the jamming occurs on a daily basis starting promptly at 7.30am and finishing at 1am the following day. It is as if someone is just coming into an office and switching on the jamming mechanism as a matter of routine.”

Hamza explained that as the ‘Arab Spring’ series of revolutions and local protests have happened the jamming has intensified. “The recent events in Libya have added to the problems, but jamming now occurs from Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria and, of course, Iran. We have pro-government jammers, as well as opposition jammers. Last week we had jamming from a very sophisticated source, and generating 30 dBW of signal power which obliterates everything else on a transponder. These people seem determined to act as satellite operators, judging what will – and will not – be carried by an operator. Indeed, this case was quite ridiculous because even after we had removed all of the channels from a transponder, which is a huge headache for us and our customers, the jamming continued onto an empty transponder!”

“These are huge problems, and there’s no real sign of the problem going away. We have some measures we can take including complaining to the Arab League, and the ITU. The ITU, it seems, has no teeth so perhaps it will need the United Nations to act, because it is truly damaging in every way. The problem is not helped by the jamming frequently coming from one Arab country against another.”

http://advanced-television.com/index.php/2012/03/14/jamming-is-hurting-satellite-industry-badly/