Satnews Daily Current Satellite News   
November 06, 2009

Asia Broadcast Satellite To Acquire Mabuhay Satellite Corp. + Agila-2 Satellite
Mabuhay Satellite Corporation (MSC) and Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) have signed an agreement for the sale and purchase of the business of MSC.   Full Story

RapidEye Ready For ESA Emergency Areas Imagery
RapidEye, geospatial solutions provider that owns and operates a constellation of five identical Earth Observation satellites, announces a frame contract signed with the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide RapidEye satellite imagery for monitoring and change detection in areas prone to natural disasters.   Full Story

Arianespace Says "Bon Voyage, Soyuz! Bonne Chance!"
Prepped for a very long voyage, the initial two Soyuz vehicles are being loaded aboard the MN Colibri transport ship in St. Petersburg, Russia this week in preparation for their transatlantic crossing to for Arianespace's operation from the Spaceport in French Guiana, South America.   Full Story

SSTL Signs On For Student Moon Project
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to manage a pan-European student built mission to the Moon.   Full Story

Northrop Grumman Team Has An Awarding LCROSS Moment
The Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC)-built Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) has been awarded the 2009 Aviation Week Program Excellence Award in the System Level Production/Sustainment category.   Full Story

Comtech EF Data's Sat Modems To Communicate In Asia
Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (Nasdaq:CMTL) announced its Tempe, Arizona-based subsidiary, Comtech EF Data Corp., has won a US$1.6 million order for SATCOM equipment.   Full Story

Boeing + U.S.A.F. Celebrate WGS' Winning Ways
Boeing [NYSE: BA] and the U.S. Air Force have received a Department of Defense (DoD) "Top 5" excellence award for systems engineering on the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) program.   Full Story

Avanti's HYLAS Arrives At ISRO Facility In India — Coundown Time
Avanti Communications Group plc [AIM: AVN], the broadband satellite operator, is pleased to announce that its HYLAS satellite payload has arrived safely at the ISRO satellite assembly facility in India where it is now being integrated into the platform and prepared for launch.   Full Story

MEASAT-3a Offers More Consumption For Foodies Across Asia-Pacific
MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. (“MEASAT”), Ascent Media Pte. Ltd. and U.S.-based Scripps Networks Interactive announced an agreement has been signed to distribute Food Network in HD across the Asia-Pacific region via the MEASAT-3a satellite.   Full Story

Globalstar Develops A Simplex Gateway In West Africa
Globalstar, Inc. (Nasdaq:GSAT) has installed a simplex data applique at its new gateway ground station in Nigeria.   Full Story

GlobeCast Upon The Waters With Sailing Competition
For the 9th annual Transat Jacques Vabre, a transatlantic sailing competition, GlobeCast has equipped French multihull yacht Cr?pes Whaou with its GlobeCast Content Exchange solution.   Full Story

Numerex Corp... Financially Speaking...
Numerex Corp. (Nasdaq: NMRX), a single source provider of secure machine-to-machine (M2M) products and services, has repaid all but US$500 thousand of its remaining US$2 million of long-term structured debt, the balance of which is scheduled to be paid on January 29, 2010.   Full Story

SIA: VIPs Sit Up + Take Notice @ The DoD Commercial SATCOM Users’ Workshop
Looks like a great gathering of VIPs that will include RADM Janice M. Hamby, Vice Director of C4 Systems, Joints Chief of Staff, Pentagon as the Keynote on December 10th, at SATCOM Users’ Workshop from December 8th to December 10th, at the Crystal City Hyatt Regency in Arlington, Virginia.   Full Story

Hughes Communications... Financially Speaking...
Hughes Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH) (“Hughes”) has announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2009.   Full Story

Eutelsat Communications... Financially Speaking...
Eutelsat Communications has reported financial information for the first quarter ended September 30, 2009.   Full Story

DIRECTV GROUP... Financially Speaking...
The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:DTV) has reported third quarter 2009 revenues increased 10 percent to US$5.47 billion, operating profit before depreciation and amortization1 (OPBDA) increased 8 percent to US$1.35 billion while operating profit increased 4 percent to US$685 million compared to last year's third quarter.   Full Story

ESA Suppliers! Take Note Of ESA's Upcoming esa-p
Starting in January 2010, EFIS, the current ESA financial and invoicing system, will be replaced with ‘esa-p’ (the new ESA SAP Portal).   Full Story

ViaSat... Financially Speaking...
ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) has announced financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 include new contract awards of US$225.7 million, revenues of US$160.7 million and non-GAAP diluted net income per share of US$0.40, or US$0.28 per share on a diluted GAAP basis.   Full Story

U.S. And Seychelles Piracy Walks The Plank — UAVs The Quiet Success
The Seychelles and the United States of America have stated their firm commitment to the coordinated effort in the combat against piracy in the western Indian Ocean.   Full Story

Georgian Public Broadcaster Consider 3rd Russian Channel (SatBroadcasting)
Georgian Public Broadcaster is considering launching of a Russian-language third channel targeting audience in the Caucasus region, Gia Chanturia, broadcaster’s general director, said.   Full Story

GlobeCast Singapore-Bound For APEC 2009 (SatBroadcasting)
In collaboration with host broadcaster MediaCorp, GlobeCast and AP Global Media Services, a division of The Associated Press, will provide international satellite delivery and full broadcast services and facilities for APEC Singapore 2009 to broadcasters worldwide.   Full Story

iStreamPlanet To Offer Vancouver 2010 Olympics As Downright Downlinkable (SatBroadcasting)
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) and iStreamPlanet have been selected to work with Microsoft Corp. to provide an integrated, end-to-end solution to deliver live and on-demand video online for NBC during the network’s coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, February 12-28.   Full Story

Ross Video Plays Out With New SoftMetal Version (SatBroadcasting)
Ross Video has introduced Version 4.2 software for the 1000 and 3000 series SoftMetal Video Servers, available free to all existing SoftMetal customers.   Full Story

A UAV Wannabe — Thailand
The Defence Ministry of Thailand wishes to develop and produce a squadron of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for the air forces of the country.   Full Story