Satnews Daily Current Satellite News   
November 20, 2009

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — Mystery Bulges In Spiral Galaxies
Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centres of spiral galaxies puzzling.   Full Story

Stratos Gets Crabby With Fleetbroadband
Stratos Global Corporation has now successfully deployed the Inmarsat FleetBroadband 500 broadband satellite service for Sig Hansen, the renowned Seattle-based captain of the crab fishing vessel Northwestern.   Full Story

ViaSat's ESEM Option For Their EBEM, Adding FDMA + More For DoD SatNets
ViaSat (Nasdaq:VSAT) is offering a new Ethernet Service Expansion Module (ESEM) baseband interface for the MD-1366 Enhanced Bandwidth Efficient Modem (EBEM) that promotes Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) modem interoperability across Department of Defense (DoD) satellite networks and adds new feature updates as well.   Full Story

Iridium Es Bueno Con Los Tres Socios de Distribución
To accelerate growth in the Mexican market, Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:IRDM) announces it has signed three additional distribution partners in Mexico.   Full Story

Thuraya Expands European Broadband Base
Thuraya Telecommunications Company has expanded the distribution chain for its competitive satellite broadband services in Europe.   Full Story

Vislink Debuts New LE&PS SDR
VISLINK, plc has advanced the state-of-the-art in Law Enforcement & Public Safety (LE&PS) wireless surveillance with the introduction of its software defined KAMELYON family of digital transmitters and receivers.   Full Story

IndigoSat To Support More Flying Medical Miracles In Australia
IndigoSat Pty Ltd, a global provider of aircraft fleet management solutions using SATCOM, announced the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) in Central and South Australia has selected IndigoSat to provide flight tracking and text communication services for its fleet of Pilatus PC-12 turboprop aircraft   Full Story

Harris' Eager Egyptian Playout For Rotana Network
Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has provided an end-to-end, broadcast channel playout solution to the Rotana television network for the upgrade of its central master control room.   Full Story

Where's The Beef? COBE Has 20 Years Worth...
NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite rocketed into Earth orbit on November 18, 1989, and revolutionized our understanding of the early cosmos.   Full Story

GateHouse A/S Astutely Gets SDR Communicating Using Inmarsat BGAN
GateHouse A/S, Spectrum Signal Processing by Vecima (Spectrum) and Inmarsat will be demo'ing a Software Defined Radio (SDR) implementation of a BGAN terminal at SDR’09 from December 1-4 in Washington DC.   Full Story

Iridium Is NEXT To Host Multi-Agencies' Payloads
Iridium Communications Inc.'s [Nasdaq:IRDM] results indicate success in numerous technical studies while working with independent technology partners, that demonstrate the feasibility of hosting Earth observation and remote sensing payloads on its planned/proposed next-generation satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT.   Full Story

Thales Alenia Space Delivers For Pleiades
Thales Alenia Space has delivered the second flight model high-resolution (HR) optical imaging instrument for integration, testing and validation in the Pleiades earth observation satellite in construction at Astrium facilities in Toulouse.   Full Story

Yahsat Sub Signs On To YahClick IEC Telecom
Star Satellite Communications Company PrJsc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) signed an agreement with IEC Telecom, an established provider of satellite-based internet services.   Full Story

Comtech EF Data Has DoubleTalk On Their Mind
Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (Nasdaq:CMTL) announced its Tempe, Arizona-based subsidiary, Comtech EF Data Corp., received a satellite modem order for approximately US$1.0 million.   Full Story

e-GEOS Eager, ESA Excited, GMES Imagery Assured
e-GEOS, the company jointly owned by Telespazio (80 percent) and the Italian Space Agency (20 percent), has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to supply optical and radar satellite data for the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) program.   Full Story

ESA's SMOS Makes MIRAS Move
The MIRAS instrument on ESA's SMOS satellite, launched earlier this month, has been switched on and is operating normally.   Full Story

Integral Systems... Financially Speaking...
Integral Systems, Inc., (Nasdaq:ISYS) announced that a shareholder derivative action brought by shareholder William Thirkill, has been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.   Full Story

EchoStar . . . Moving On Up . . .
EchoStar Corporation [Nasdaq: SATS] announced Michael T. Dugan has been named the company’s president and CEO, positions formerly held by Charles Ergen.   Full Story

DIRECTV . . . Moving On Up . . .
DIRECTV, a major provider of digital television services, today named Michael White as its new President and CEO.   Full Story

NSR Sees 180+ EO Sats Launched Over Next Decade
According to NSR's new report, Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation (EO), the EO industry is in the midst of a significant growth phase slated to generate revenues for many segments of the satellite industry.   Full Story

Telstra Selects STB From Netgem For Australian IPTV Service (SatBroadcasting™)
IPTV STB manufacturer and software developer, Netgem, has been selected by Telstra Corporation Limited to supply STB device and software for the T-Box™ service, which is Australia’s leading telecommunication and information Services company.   Full Story

ARINC Flying High With FAA Commendation
ARINC Incorporated has once again been commended by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its “outstanding performance” in providing air-ground communications in the FAA’s Oceanic Flight Information Regions.   Full Story

Snell Is Sirius In Making The BBC's Life More Productive (SatBroadcasting™)
Snell announced the company's Sirius 800 Series large-scale multiformat router will provide core video routing for the BBC within the newly redeveloped London Broadcasting House.   Full Story

Softel Makes A Grab With Video Server Solutions (SatBroadcasting™)
Softel and online video specialists Grab Networks have a partnership wherein Grab will supply the Softel Swift vTX subtitling and captioning solution as an integrated component of Grab Networks video server solutions.   Full Story

A Challenging Year For Broadcasting Manufacturers (SatBroadcasting™)
2009 has been a very challenging year for the broadcast and media technology industry but as the global economic situation starts to ease, so suppliers start to regain some confidence in the market going forward.   Full Story

Saab — Swedes Sign To Sell Surveillance System To UAE
After conducting discussions for several years defense and security company Saab has signed a contract for the sale of an airborne surveillance system to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) worth approximately 1.5 billion SEK.   Full Story

GlobeCast Remains InFront Fav For WorldSBK Distribution (SatBroadcasting)
Content management and delivery company GlobeCast will provide contribution and world wide distribution of the FIM Superbike World Championships (WorldSBK) to broadcast rights holders for the next two years, following the extension of its relationship with the series promoter Infront Sports & Media.   Full Story

Liberty Media... Financially Speaking... Split-Off + Merger Details...
Liberty Media Corporation ("Liberty Media") (Nasdaq: LCAPA, LCAPB, LINTA, LINTB, LSTZA, LSTZB) has completed its previously announced split-off (the "Split-Off") of Liberty Entertainment, Inc. ("LEI") from Liberty Media and the business combination transaction between The DIRECTV Group, Inc. ("DIRECTV") and LEI (the "DTV Business Combination").   Full Story

Heron Has Panama On Its UAV Demo Schedule
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is strengthening its position in Central and South America and, in the coming year, will hold demonstrations of its Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for Panamanian security forces.   Full Story

digiGO! The Digital (R)Evolution™ — Momail Phasing In Taiwan Mobile
Momail has signed a deal with Taiwan Mobile that will find the latter using the former's mobile email platform for their Catch Mail offer.   Full Story

digiGO! — The Digital (R)Evolution™ — THQ Wireless Sets Up iTunes For X-Wing Action
THQ Wireless Inc., a subsidiary of THQ Inc., (NASDAQ:THQI) announced Star Wars™: Trench Run is now available for download globally on iTunes.   Full Story