Intelsat General Awarded X-Band Satellite Services For Middle EastIntelsat General Awarded X-Band Satellite Services For Middle East
by Staff Writers Under the terms of the contract, Intelsat General will provide DRS Technologies with a package of managed services that include an asymmetric 155 Mbps satellite link, high-speed modems with advanced coding, ground stations, fiber connectivity and terrestrial equipment for the high-data-rate X-band link. The team will leverage the expertise of all three companies in the provision of a turnkey managed service to the government customer. DRS Technologies, based in Parsippany, NJ, is a leading supplier of integrated products, services and support to military forces, intelligence agencies and prime commercial contractors worldwide. The initial one-year contract has a value of $6.5 million and, if all options are exercised, will be valued at $48 million over three years. Paradigm, a wholly owned subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), was established specifically to provide protected and survivable satellite communication services to the UK Ministry of Defence worldwide. "Our strong presence in the Middle East, coupled with the technical expertise of Intelsat General, will allow us to bring a range of X-band communications services to the clients we serve," said Dr. Mitchell Rambler, President of the Technical Services Segment of DRS. Kay Sears, senior vice president of Intelsat General, said "Our strong relationships with DRS and Paradigm facilitated delivery to a US customer of the latest and most capable generation of the Skynet fleet of satellites, leveraging on-board array technology for beam shaping, anti-jam and space-based interference geo-location. This offers a unique opportunity for NATO governments and their military forces worldwide." "Being able to offer our Skynet capacity to U.S.-based customers is another major step forward for Paradigm," said Eric Beranger, CEO of the Astrium Services division of EADS. "With the most powerful X-band capability in orbit, our Skynet 5 satellites will extend the coverage and range of military satellite communications services available to government customers worldwide." - 11/6/2008 - Comment {0} - Post CommentSpace Station Crew Welcomes New Cargo Ship
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) welcomed the arrival of a new Russian cargo ship filled with fresh food, water and other vital supplies Friday after a flawless orbital rendezvous. The unmanned space freighter Progress 29 successfully docked with the station at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) as both spacecraft flew 215 miles (346 km) above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Brazil. "Okay, guys! Congratulations with the successful docking!" Russia's Mission Control radioed the station's three-man crew. Loaded with some 2.3 tons of cargo, the automated Progress 29 supply ship launched toward the station Wednesday atop a Russian-built Soyuz rocket, lifting off from the central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After a two-day trek, the spacecraft – also known by its Russian designation M-64 – arrived at an open berth on the station's Earth-facing Zarya control module. "Everything's nominal," Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, commander of the station's Expedition 17 crew, told Mission Control as the freighter neared its orbital dock. Volkov and fellow cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, an Expedition 17 flight engineer, watched over the arrival of Progress 29 from inside the station, where they were poised to take remote control of the cargo ship if its automated docking systems failed. But the space freighter flew smooth and true. Volkov, Kononenko and flight engineer Garrett Reisman of NASA are expected to open the hatches separating the station and its new cargo ship at about 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) tonight. They will begin unloading spacecraft's 4,657 pounds (2,112 kg) of supplies on Saturday, NASA officials said. Packed aboard Progress 29 are about 770 pounds (350 kg) of rocket propellant, over 100 pounds (45 kg) of oxygen and air, and 925 pounds (420 kg) of water. The freighter is carrying about 2,850 pounds (1,292 kg) of dry cargo, which includes 568 pounds (258 kg) of food, 277 pounds (126 kg) of medicine and 282 pounds (128 kg) of hygiene items, according to Russia's Federal Space Agency and wire reports. A batch of 90 snails also launched to station aboard Progress 29 as part of an experiment that studies the effects of weightlessness on living organisms, Russia's Interfax News Agency has reported. Russia's unmanned Progress cargo ships are similar in appearance to the country's three-segment Soyuz spacecraft that routinely ferry astronauts to and from the space station. Progress 29 was initially slated to dock at a berth on the station's Russian-built Pirs docking compartment, but that perch is currently occupied by the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft that ferried Volkov and Kononenko to the station last month. The Expedition 17 crew was originally slated to move the Soyuz to the Zarya docking port, clearing the Pirs berth for Progress 29, in early May. But Russian and NASA flight controllers canceled that short flight due to an ongoing investigation into a previous Soyuz spacecraft's off-target landing last month. - 9/6/2008 - Comment {0} - Post CommentFirst Directly Imaged Brown Dwarf Companion to an Exoplanet Host Star
"Such a system is an interesting example that might prove that planet and brown dwarf can form around the same star", said Markus Mugrauer, lead author of the paper presenting the discovery. HD 3651 is a star slightly less massive than the Sun, located 36 light-years away in the constellation Pisces (the "Fish"). For several years, it has been known to harbour a planet less massive than Saturn, sitting closer to its parent star than Mercury is from the Sun: the planet accomplishes a full orbit in 62 days. Mugrauer and his colleagues first spotted the faint companion in 2003 on images from the 3.8-m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. Observations in 2004 and 2006 using ESO's 3.6 m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla provided the crucial confirmation that the speck of light is not a spurious background star, but indeed a true companion. The newly found companion, HD 3651B, is 16 times further away from HD 3651 than Neptune is from the Sun. HD 3651B is the dimmest directly imaged companion of an exoplanet host star. Furthermore, as it is not detected on the photographic plates of the Palomar All Sky Survey, the companion must be even fainter in the visible spectral range than in the infrared, meaning it is a very cool low-mass sub-stellar object. Comparing its characteristics with theoretical models, the astronomers infer that the object has a mass between 20 and 60 Jupiter masses, and a temperature between 500 and 600 degrees Celsius. It is thus ten times colder and 300 000 less luminous than the Sun. These properties place it in the category of cool T-type brown dwarfs. "Due to their faintness even in the infrared, these cool T dwarfs are very difficult to find", said Mugrauer. "Only two other brown dwarfs with similar brightness are presently known. Their study will provide important insights into the atmospheric properties of cool sub- stellar objects." More than 170 stars are currently known to host exoplanets. In some cases, these stars were also found to have one or several stellar companions, showing that planet formation can also take place in a dynamically more complex environment than our own Solar System where planet formation occurred around an isolated single star. In 2001, Mugrauer and his colleagues started an observational programme to find out whether exoplanet host stars are single or married. In this programme, known exoplanet host stars are systematically imaged at two different epochs, at least several months apart. True companions can be distinguished from coincidental background objects as only they move together with the stars over time. With this effective search strategy several new companions of exoplanet host stars have been detected. Most of the detected companions are low-mass stars in the same evolutionary state as the Sun. In two cases, however, the astronomers found the companions to be white dwarfs, that is, stars at the end of their life. These intriguing systems bear evidence that planets can even survive the troubled last moments in the life of a nearby star. The planet host star HD 3651 is thus surrounded by two sub-stellar objects. The planet, HD 3651b, is very close, while the newly found brown dwarf companion revolves around the star 1500 times farther away than the planet. This system is the first imaged example that planets and brown dwarfs can form around the same star. More information These results were first presented in August at the IAU General Assembly in Prague and are in press in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Mugrauer et al., astro-ph/0608484). The discovery was later confirmed by another team, using the Spitzer space telescope (Luhman et al., astro-ph/0609464). The spectral classification was confirmed by additional follow-up spectroscopy of the companion (Burgasser, astro-ph/0609556). - 22/10/2006 - Comment {0} - Post Comment
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Astronomers have detected a new faint companion to the star HD 3651, already known to host a planet. This companion, a brown dwarf, is the faintest known companion of an exoplanet host star imaged directly and one of the faintest T dwarfs detected in the Solar neighbourhood so far. The detection yields important information on the conditions under which planets form. 
