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DoD’s AFRTS Taps New Skies for Occasional-use and Restoration Services |
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Feb. 7/Satnews Daily/ — New Skies Satellites B.V. (NYSE:NSK) (AEX:NSK) announced on Friday the company is supporting the U.S. Department of Defense's American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) with occasional-use and restoration services across three satellites, the NSS-5, NSS-6 and NSS-7 spacecraft.
New Skies said AFRTS is using the NSS-6 and NSS-7 satellites to transmit coverage of ongoing U.S. disaster relief efforts throughout Southeast Asia from Thailand back to the United States. AFRTS also has been using the NSS-7 satellite since November 2003 to deliver coverage of U.S. service men and women working in Iraq.
AFRTS uses this capacity to transmit live press conferences from Baghdad as well as live video for major events such as the NFL's Super Bowl XXXIX on February 6, 2005, showing U.S. troops watching the event. Providing a "touch of home," the footage will be broadcast by FOX Sports as part of the overall Super Bowl coverage to be delivered worldwide and via AFRTS to U.S. service men and women, DoD civilians, and their families located in 177 countries around the world.
In addition, New Skies has been providing satellite restoration services in support of AFRTS on the NSS-5 and NSS-6 satellites following the failure of AFRTS' primary Pacific satellite transmission platform on January 14.
According to New Skies, AFRTS is uplinking nine television and 12 radio channels to the NSS-5 Pacific Ocean region satellite for transmission to New Skies' partner mediaport facility in Hong Kong, where it is redistributed to broadcast, cable and direct-to-home television systems throughout Japan and South Korea via NSS-6. The restoration services ensure that more than 180,000 U.S. service personnel and their families have access to all of AFRTS' news, sports and entertainment programming.
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