Really Rocket Science

Conveniently for the American rocket scientists, Arianespace postponed the Ariane 5 ECA launch from Friday, 4 July 2008, to today. The launch window opens at 21:47 GMT and closes at 22:21. More about the payload:

The Ariane 5 ECA will deliver a payload performance of 8,639 kg. - which includes 7,537 kg. for the mission's ProtoStar I and BADR-6 spacecraft passengers, along with their integration hardware and the SYLDA 5 multiple satellite dispenser system.

ProtoStar I is the first in a fleet of relay platforms that Asian satellite services company ProtoStar will deploy for advanced satellite television services and powerful two-way broadband communications access. It is based on Space Systems/Loral's 1300 spacecraft bus, and will provide K-band/C-band relay capacity over Asia for the needs of both emerging and existing direct-to-home (DTH) operators, as well as other broadband communication requirements in the region.

Arabsat's BADR-6 satellite will open up new video broadcasting and telecommunications services for the entire Middle East and North Africa region, along with a large part of sub-Saharan Africa. Built by EADS Astrium, the Ku/C-band relay platform is designed for a lifetime of about 15 years, and will operate from Arabsat's 26 deg. E geostationary orbital location.

Voir la vidéo ici. Watch the video here, too.

No, not your own fireworks -- playing with chemistry at home is dangerous. We're talking dazzling astronomic observation, as this "image of the day" from NASA:

Stars and a Stripe in Celestial Fireworks

A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.

Around May 1, 1006 A.D., observers from Africa to Europe to the Far East witnessed and recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a tremendous supernova explosion caused by the final death throes of a white dwarf star nearly 7,000 light-years away. The supernova was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans, and surpassed Venus as the brightest object in the night time sky, only to be surpassed by the moon. It was visible even during the day for weeks, and remained visible to the naked eye for at least two and a half years before fading away.

It wasn't until the mid-1960s that radio astronomers first detected a nearly circular ring of material at the recorded position of the supernova. The ring was almost 30 arcminutes across, the same angular diameter as the full moon. The size of the remnant implied that the blast wave from the supernova had expanded at nearly 20 million miles per hour over the nearly 1,000 years since the explosion occurred.

Today, SN 1006 has a diameter of nearly 60 light-years, and it is still expanding at roughly 6 million miles per hour. Even at this tremendous speed, however, it takes observations typically separated by years to see significant outward motion of the shock wave against the grid of background stars. In the Hubble image as displayed, the supernova would have occurred far off the lower right corner of the image, and the motion would be toward the upper left.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) 

But NASA is predicting a planetary alignment for today and this weekend, via PhysOrg.com:

The show gets going on Friday, July 4th. Red Mars and ringed Saturn converge just to the left of the bright star Regulus. The three lights make a pretty 1st-magnitude line in the heavens.

But that is just the beginning. On Saturday, July 5th, with weekend fireworks at fever pitch, a lovely crescent Moon joins the show. Saturn, Mars, and the Moon trace an even brighter line than the night before.

Scan a small telescope along the line. You'll see Saturn's rings, the little red disk of Mars, a grand sweep of lunar mountains and craters, and just maybe—flash!—a manmade incendiary. How often do you see fireworks through a telescope?

This is, however, more than just a flashy gathering of planets—it is also a gathering of spaceships and robots.

Each of the three worlds is orbited or inhabited by probes from Earth. Saturn has the Cassini spacecraft, studying the gas giant's storms, moons and rings. The Moon has two probes in orbit: Kaguya from Japan and Chang'e-1 from China. The pair, operating independently, are mapping the Moon and scanning for resources in advance of future human landings. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will join them later this year.

Mars has more probes than the others combined. Three active satellites orbit the red planet: Europe's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The three not only study Mars with their own instruments, but also form a satellite network in support of NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and Mars lander Phoenix.

None of these mechanical specks are visible in a backyard telescope, but they are there, heralds of a growing human presence in the solar system. Tell that to your buddy at the fireworks show!

During the short night of July 5th, the Moon glides past Mars and Saturn so that nightfall on Sunday, July 6th, brings a different arrangement—a scalene triangle. The triad is easy to find in the hours after sunset. Look west and let the Moon be your guide.

In the nights that follow, the Moon exits stage left, leaving the others behind. Don't stop watching, though. Saturn and Mars are converging for their closest encounter of the next 14 years. After nightfall on Thursday, July 10th, the two planets will be just ¾ of a degree apart, snug enough to fit behind the tip of your pinky finger held at arm's length.

Now that's spectacular—no fireworks required.

Cool. No smoke, fire or noise. There's more than enough of that going on around you. To all the rocket scientist in the U.S., have a great 4th of July. 

Bèibei, Jīngjing, Huānhuan, Yíngying, Nīni -- the Fuwa, official mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympiad. Each represents one of the five Chinese elements: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Air, respectively. Colored for the five Olympic rings, we can expect a lot of them over the course of this summer, with the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony on Friday, 8 August 2008.

The swirling stories around the 3.5 hour show are getting interesting -- from a giant winking panda to fantastic fireworks. According to one of the producers,  "The world can expect, of course, to be gobsmacked..."

Imagine a 100-m-wide red flower opening up its petals; picture 10,000 bicycles circling the Olympic stadium and transforming into hi-tech robots; then envisage Peking Opera performers morphing into hip-hop dancers and singing in English.

Finally, picture a 50-m-tall giant inflatable panda, which turns its head and winks at the world.

These powerful images of rapid change and spectacular icons are the possible eye-candy in the Middle Kingdom's biggest ever ceremony.     

China's record-breaking social and economic changes over the past 20 years will become one of the major themes of the Olympic opening ceremony, according to one of the key members of the team.

Although opening ceremony organizers are sworn to secrecy, Games ceremonies guru Ric Birch has hinted that China's great changes will be a dominant theme.

"The fact China has achieved so much in one generation is so extraordinary, we can't compute it," he told China Daily.

"There has never been an equivalent, so we don't have benchmarks.

"All these issues will come together for me in Beijing for the opening ceremony."

Australian Birch is a key adviser to Zhang Yimou, who wields full creative control over the ceremonies.

I still like Jack Black's arrival in Cannes last month...

The Olympics are an immense undertaking and China will be under an intense global media spotlight. TV news crews from all over the world will need to coordinate their RF transmit-receive equipment like never before.

What we might expect to see unveiled is which mobile TV standard will be selected as the national standard in China. EE Times did a piece on this a month ago:

"We used to joke that there are as many standards in China as there are universities, but it looks like CMMB is pulling ahead," said Azzedine Boubguira, vice president of business development for DiBcom, which designs demodulators.

DiBcom, Siano and Beijing-based Innofidei Inc. will all have CMMB silicon ready by the end of this year or early next. Innofidei already has a chip out, having released a first-generation demodulator in March, and hopes to have a smaller, lower-power version by October. Around that time, two satellites will be launched in preparation for network trials in the spring and modest commercial services targeted at the Olympics.

At least, that's the plan. "It will be a rush job for sure. I don't see it happening by then," said Duncan Clark, managing director of telecom consultancy BDA China. Others are also doubtful, including the chip makers themselves.

It has become increasingly clear that CMMB's benefactor, the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (Sarft), is willing to use its power over frequency allocation and content licensing to see that CMMB wins out over competing standards, including established international formats such as Europe's DVB-H and South Korea's T-DMB. But the CMMB effort's estimated $3 billion price tag may not fly with government bean counters. And China's track record for implementing homegrown technologies is spotty. Its highest-profile case thus far is a 3G technology, TD-SCDMA, whose ascendancy has easily set back the rollout of 3G services for at least a year as engineers rush to make it reliable.

Sarft introduced CMMB last October. The spec is based on a homegrown transport technology known as STiMi (short for "satellite and terrestrial interactive multiservice infrastructure"). The service operates in the 2.6-GHz frequency, using 25 MHz of bandwidth to offer 25 video and 30 radio channels, plus some data channels. STiMi supports the S- and UHF/VHF bands and will use both satellites and terrestrial relays to implement coverage. The technology bears some resemblance to Europe's DVB-SH (for satellite service to handheld devices).

Competitive and regulatory challenges could impede CMMB's progress. A chip maker associated with the development of China's free-to-air transmission standard, DMB-T, is trying to field a low-power chip set for portable media players (PMPs), automotive displays and notebook PCs (via USB dongles). The company, Legend Silicon, believes those uses will trump handsets as the early market for mobile TV in China.

"There's enough money to be made in USB and PMPs, plus we have the larger market of set-top boxes and TVs," said Hong Dong, a co-founder of Legend.

Interestingly, the USB and PMP market is also the initial target of CMMB backer Innofidei. By sidestepping the handset, at least for now, these companies are waiting to see the outcome of a potential showdown among CMMB, DMB-T and another, little-known standard that has been floated by a rival bureaucracy, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

The spec, T-MMB (Terrestrial-Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting), is a T-DMB derivative developed by Beijing software firm Nufrontsoft in conjunction with two local universities. The MII-backed format supports frequencies from 30 MHz to 3 GHz. Like T-DMB, which is based on the Digital Audio Broadcasting spec, it uses bandwidth of 1.536 MHz and can support four to seven video channels and two audio channels.

At the moment, it's uncertain how committed MII is to backing T-MMB and instigating a turf battle. Insiders said T-MMB seems to have the least support.

The minutiae of bureaucratic maneuvers may have a profound impact on the way the mobile-TV industry develops in China. If CMMB is to be successful, it needs the backing of telecom regular MII, which approves handsets for distribution to operators. On the other hand, if MII wants to push T-MMB, it would have to get Sarft to approve frequencies and content licenses.

"They need each other to be successful, but they need telecom convergence to see this happen. So they are kind of stuck," said BDA's Clark.

All this uncertainty greatly influenced EchoStars decision (10-Q Statement) to suspend their S-band payload plans:

We are suspending construction of the CMBStar satellite and may record an impairment charge. During April 2008, we notified the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television of China that we were suspending construction of the CMBStar satellite pending, among other things, further analysis relating to efforts to meet the satellite performance criteria and/or confirmation that alternative performance criteria would be acceptable. We are also currently evaluating potential alternative uses for the CMBStar satellite. Therefore, we could be required to record an impairment charge relating to the CMBStar satellite. We currently estimate that this potential charge could be as much as $100 million, which would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial position.

Good of EE Times to pick up on that one, too, and concluding no satellite capacity exists to launch a new national standard in China:

When the Beijing Olympic Games start in August, China's much-touted mobile TV broadcast service will have to crawl before it can walk--because it's missing one leg.

The homegrown Chinese system has been designed to operate by picking up two signals: a 2.6-GHz satellite signal and a 700-MHz terrestrial signal. (see: Satellite mobile-TV spec gains influential backers in China)

However, no satellite will be operating in time to realize the full promise of the China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) standard — technology also known as STiMi (satellite and terrestrial interactive multiservice infrastructure).

EchoStar, the primary provider of S-band satellite capacity for China's mobile video project, quietly revealed in its 10-Q form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in late May that it is suspending construction of the CMBStar satellite.

China Satellite Mobile Broadcast (CSM), a company overseen by the Wireless Bureau of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (Sarft), last year selected China Mobile Broadcasting Satellite (CMBSat), a Hong Kong-based affiliate of EchoStar, as its partner.

EchoStar claimed that it already notified the Sarft of its intentions in April. But the U.S. firm has not explained why it suspended activities in China, other than saying that its decision is "pending, among other things, further analysis relating to efforts to meet the satellite performance criteria and/or confirmation that alternative performance criteria would be acceptable."

It remains unclear if any technical problems have surfaced, or if the delay is purely a negotiating ploy by EchoStar or CSM.

Although EchoStar remains a viable candidate to deliver a satellite to China, a growing likelihood is that China will turn to its own satellite companies to launch a satellite in the first quarter of 2009.

Last month, we read on Pink Tentacle about a company in Japan offering weddings in space via Kistler's RocketPlane.

Today we read in The Australian they're accepting reservations:

Each happy couple will spend 240 million yen ($A2.4 million) for the ceremony in a small space vessel, which will shoot up 100km into the sky.

During the hour-long flight, the couple will spend several minutes in zero gravity during which they will exchange their vows with up to three guests present, said Taro Katsura, a spokesman for Japanese firm First Advantage.

The couple would perform most of the ceremony before takeoff "so that they can say their vows and look out the window," Mr Katsura said.

The firm is offering the space marriages in a tie-up with US-based Rocket Plane, which will conduct the flights from a private airport in Oklahoma. From the spaceship, the couple would probably be able to see the outline of the Earth although they will not be far enough into space to allow complete floating, Mr Katsura said.

Despite launching the offer in Japan, the company said it expected most of its customers to be from China or Arab Gulf nations. There are currently no plans to start the space weddings in the United States, Mr Katsura said.

Sure, I'll look out the window for a few minutes. Other newlywed activities may be more interesting for most people -- especially rocket scientists.

I can almost hear Frank Sinatra singing the song now...

Yes, the number of free-to-air channels featuring "adult content" in Europe is astounding -- over 70 in France via Eutelsat alone. And France's CSA (Le Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel) wants to know more about, ahem, these channels. With names like "Happy Hour Girls," "Babecast" and "The Basement," it's market segmentation at its best. The news item, via Broadband TV News:

The French media authority CSA says it has written a letter to satellite operator Eutelsat demanding all necessary information about the seventy porn and adult channels that transmit over one of their satellites. The regulator wants to identify all these broadcasters and their place of origin, apparently in a move to better control the channels.

The CSA wants to identify all such broadcasters and see if they operate with a proper broadcasting licence. Lately, in some European countries there has been some uproar about the large number of adult channels available free to air on satellite.

No wonder Eutelsat named their satellites "Hotbird."

Are you kidding me? During a LIVE broadcast, ESPN's feed from Switzerland goes dark? That's right, rocket scientists, they lost the signal during the Euro 2008 semi-final match between Turkey and Germany. I missed one of the goals! And it wasn't only ESPN that lost the feed -- everybody lost it. Germans, Turks -- all the live broadcasts were depending on that pool feed from Basel, Switzerland (live webcam image above).

Why? Has the world gone mad? Where's my Swiss dependability? Perhaps I shouldn't trust those aerial trams and cable cars at ski resorts like I used to, owing to "Swiss dependability." Well, it's got nothing to do with "the Swiss." This was all UEFA: they decided to handle all the technical stuff themselves by forming UEFA Media Technologies SA, who was in charge of the International Broadcast Centre in Vienna, Austria. The operation is run by Alexandre Fourtoy, who used to run their Web site, uefa.com.

Apparently lightning struck the power source and knocked out the feed several times, via Canadian Press:

A violent thunderstorm swept across Austria and knocked out power at the International Broadcast Center in Vienna, from where television images of the match were beamed around the world.

With the match delicately poised at 1-1 in the second half at St. Jakob Park in the Swiss city of Basel, screens around the world flickered and went blank. Internet coverage also was hit by the blackout.

"Tonight the television signal in the International Broadcast Centre for the Germany-Turkey game has been interrupted several times in the second half due to technical reasons which are currently being investigated, in particular to evaluate the impact of the violent electrical storm over Vienna at that time," UEFA said in a statement.

As the thunderstorm raged over Vienna, the images came and went several times in the closing minutes.

In between the blackouts, Miroslav Klose gave Germany a 2-1 lead in the 79th minute off a cross from Philipp Lahm. But screens were blank when Semih Senturk pulled off what looked like another Turkey escape act with an 86th-minute equalizer, beating goalkeeper Jens Lehmann at the near post.

Images returned in time for viewers to watch Lahm eliminate Turkey with a goal in the last minute of regulation time.

The only broadcasters whose signal escaped the interruption were Swiss public TV company SRG in Zurich and Al-Jazeera, said UEFA, which couldn't immediately explain why those feeds were unaffected by the Vienna broadcast centre blackout.

However, SRG spokesman Daniel Steiner, said the broadcaster has access to an official feed in all Swiss stadiums, and they were able to tap into that when the connection went down. The Swiss broadcaster provided the feed to German TV station ZDF for 15 minutes, during which time the two goals were scored.

The heavy rain, high winds and lightning also sparked the evacuation of a fan zone in downtown Vienna and two people were injured after being trampled in the rush to leave the area, police said.

Authorities said they gave the order to close the fan zone at 10:15 p.m. local time after the storm unleashed winds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour.

While the disruptive storm hit Vienna, spectators watching the game at the ground in Basel remained dry and unperturbed throughout.

Look, this isn't some minor league game from Ukraine -- this is the European Championships, aruguably the second most important soccer (football) tournament after the World Cup. You're providing the satellite feed for hundreds of television networks. Where's your redundancy?

When Fox does an NFL game from the Los Angeles, for example, they buy three fiber and two satellite paths, and probably a couple of power generators (properly grounded) standing by. Nobody wants to break the news to Rupert they saved some money by not having an extra back-up on Monday.

So they switched to a feed showing the "fanzone" in the Muensterplatz. Actually, the match ended while we were watching that feed. I'm sure I was not the only one outraged by this. Al-Jazeera's feed was not affected? Dude...

We'll follow up on this one later.

The Guardian's live text coverage captured the moment well:

GOAL! Germany 2-1 Turkey (Klose 78): Goal! And I didn't see it! Rustu comes for a cross, makes a right pig's ear of it, and Klose heads home. So I'm told.

Gasoline prices don't have much affect on hydrazine, the primary fuel used for spacecraft propulsion. Demand for ethanol has had a remarkable affect on corn prices (up 21%), however, with far-reaching implications on chemical processes that use it during fermentation. But there is new research showing a promising reduction in cost.

Doesn't have much direct affect on the cost to design, build, launch and operate a communications satellite. But, as with other markets, pricing is based on supply and demand. With the recent change in ownership of International Launch Services, there could be changes afoot. When United Launch Alliance was formed, most of their launch manifest was taken up by the U.S. Air Force, leaving the commercial market scrambling for alternatives.

Good thing Arianespace is moving right along -- their next launch is at the end of next week, only 3 weeks after their last (de continuer d'avancer).We blogged about the controversy surrounding the Protostar-1 satellite last month, which naturally turned up again during CommunicAsia last week, via Telecom TV:

Interviewed at the Communicasia 2008 summit in Singapore yesterdaym by our sister publication Commsday, the president of ProtoStar Asia, Dr Eui K. Koh said that while co-ordination issues with the two other birds remain a problem, the company has no plans to delay the launch of its first satellite. 

“We are doing it [co-ordination] diligently. These things take time,” Dr Koh said. “The co-ordination will continue after the launch. As a satellite operator, you have to respect your customers, as well as the customers of other satellite operators.” 

According to Mr. Koh, the company has had several meetings with the owners of the two adjacent satellites and will continue to have negotiate going forward. 

ProtoStar One will be launched onboard an Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift launcher version from Arianespace. The satellite will feature a C-band foot- print over most of South East Asia, India and the Middle East as well as two Ku-band beams covering India and an area stretching from Singapore northward to the southern border of China. 

In an earlier media report, it was reported that ProtoStar has come under fire from rival operators because it did not co-ordinate with the industry to avoid possible interference on nearby satellites before finalising its launch plans. The Chinese government’s Ministry of Information and Industry has reportedly protested about the launch, as has AsiaSat. 

According to industry sources, the situation is further complicated because ProtoStar has already signed up a customer in India and has a deadline and schedule for the delivery of services.

Well, it looks like we're in for a show for the 4th of July:

Arianespace has taken delivery of the fourth Ariane 5 in 2008, maintaining its accelerated flight pace during the busiest year of commercial mission activity for this workhorse launch vehicle.

The handover occurred with Ariane 5’s transfer from the Launcher Integration Building at Europe’s Spaceport – where its build-up was performed under responsibility of prime contractor EADS Astrium, to the Final Assembly Building – where Arianespace will oversee integration of the mission’s ProtoStar I and BADR-6 payloads.

In its trademark dual-passenger configuration, the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA will carry ProtoStar I in the upper payload position, with BADR-6 riding below it inside the SLYDA 5 dispenser system.  Liftoff is scheduled for an evening launch window on July 4.

ProtoStar I is the lead satellite in a fleet of relay platforms that Asia’s ProtoStar plans to launch for advanced satellite television services and powerful two-way broadband communications access.  Built by Space Systems Loral, the spacecraft was designed to meet the needs of both emerging and existing direct-to-home (DTH) operators in Asia, as well as other broadband communication requirements in the region.

The BADR-6 spacecraft was built jointly by EADS Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space, and will be used for video broadcasting services over the Middle East and North Africa regions.   To be operated by Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat, BADR-6 carries a mixed payload of 24 C-band and 20 Ku-band transponders, and is designed for a lifetime of about 15 years.  The spacecraft will be located at Arabsat's 26 deg. E geostationary orbital position.

Biggy, Biggy, Biggy, can't you see? CommunicAsia 2008 is all over me.

The big news in Singapore this week is all about telecom at the Singapore Expo. The region's satcom players are making the news -- even appearing on CNBC.

Globecast's new playout centre is amibitious:

GlobeCast Media Management, a solution for playout and origination, will be the key product offered to broadcasters of all sizes from this new centre – providing channels with use of market leading technology without the expensive investment. The centre will allow new channels to reach viewers using a fast and reliable solution and help international channels entering the market to create regionalised feeds and enhance their appeal to Asian audiences.

The launch of GlobeCast’s Media Management in the region means that broadcasters in Asia will be able to focus on their content and programming and outsource both their channel management and delivery needs to GlobeCast. Coupled with connectivity to GlobeCast’s worldwide satellite and fibre distribution network and linked to twelve teleports and technical operations centres around the globe, the company also offers this one stop solution from its facilities in London and Florida. The two existing facilities already serve major clients such as Arsenal TV and ION Networks.

And SingTel's maritime service on SES NEW SKIES, using a whopping 5 MHz of space on each of satellites, via Red Orbit:

Mr. Titus Yong, SingTel's Vice President of Satellite, said: "SingTel, one of Asia's leading satellite service providers, has been providing VSAT services with regional coverage for over two years. We are pleased to work with a top-tier global satellite service provider such as SES NEW SKIES to extend our reach to provide seamless and secure worldwide coverage over all major shipping routes."

The SES NEW SKIES satellites will also support demand for SingTel's OfficeAtSea@SingTel suite of Maritime VSAT solutions, which enable vessels to communicate seamlessly and cost-effectively with their headquarters on land. Solutions include 'always-on' unlimited broadband internet access, email, low-cost Voice over IP (VoIP) calls, GSM onboard and ship surveillance. These overcome the limitations of traditional maritime communications by allowing the ship to become a seamless extension of the shore-based office.

My favorite piece of news concerns a new direct-to-home satellite TV service in India, Big TV. We first read about it last week in Hindustan Times, where the launch date was leaked:

With the direct-to home race hotting up, Anil Ambani’s Big TV has decided to launch in haste. The company is planning a June 24 launch, said industry sources, with teaser campaigns hitting televisions four days before the launch. Abhisekh Bachchan may be used as a brand ambassador sources added.

Big TV’s entry, this month may intensify the action in the DTH space that is seeing a fierce price-war. Big TV already serves 50,000 customers who are part of its pilot launch and are its employees and customers of associate companies. According to the 2008 Ficci-PwC report on Indian entertainment and media industry, DTH households are expected to grow from 4 million in 2007 to 25 million by 2012.

When contacted, a Big TV spokesperson said, "Reliance Communications is in advanced stages of launching Big TV DTH services. Big TV DTH service aims to be the most preferred option for home entertainment solutions across customer segments. Like in case of all offerings from Reliance ADA Group, customers using Big TV DTH services would be able to avail of better service quality, enhanced features and wider offerings at prevailing price points".

And Indian Television is telling us they signed up for a transponder on AsiaSat 3S:

Reliance Big Broadcasting COO Ashutosh says, "One of our key objectives is to bring to our audience a unique, world class and unprecedented TV viewing experience. Placing our satellite television services on AsiaSat 3S, Asia’s premium platform for satellite television enables us to establish in the shortest time possible a seamless broadcast network accessing all our targeted cable homes.

"By using Asiasat 3S, the most popular satellite platform for the Indian media market, we gain immediate access to all cable head ends across India. We are proud to have AsiaSat as our partner as it has a powerful satellite fleet offering the most comprehensive coverage and largest audience access that fully support our aggressive broadcast plan in India".

Big TV reportedly bought 5 million set-top boxes recently, so they've got big plans. More DTH competition for Tata Sky and Dish TV. This should be interesting.

Watch it live, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Launch window:

GMT: From 9:54 p.m. to 10:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
Local time in Kourou: From 6:54 p.m. to 7:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
New York: From 5:54 p.m. to 6:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
Paris: From 11:54 p.m. to 00:43 a.m. on June 12/13, 2008

The update, via Arianespace:

Arianespace’s third mission of 2008 is ready for liftoff tomorrow evening following the roll-out of Ariane 5 to the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch zone this morning.

Emerging from the Final Assembly Building at 11:00 a.m., the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA’s transfer was completed in 1 hr. 15 min.  It rode atop one of two mobile launch tables developed for the workhorse vehicle, and moved along a 2.8-km. section of the dual-rail track that links the Spaceport's major launch infrastructure elements.

This flight will be another of Ariane 5’s trademark dual-satellite missions, carrying the Skynet 5C and Turksat 3A spacecraft.  Its upper passenger is Skynet 5C, which was installed atop the SYLDA 5 dispenser system, and then encapsulated in Ariane 5’s ogive-shaped payload fairing. 

The mission’s payload “stack” places Turksat 3A in the lower passenger position, with this satellite being released in the final phase of Ariane 5’s 32-minute fight. 

Mobile Satellite Ventures is proposing a system to help predict earthquakes in the U.S. Naturally, it's a satellite-based system:

Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) today announced that it has joined with the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC) to form a new satellite mutual aid radio talkgroup (SMART) dedicated to the preparation for and response to earthquakes throughout the central United States.

CUSEC is a partnership of the federal government and eight states most affected by earthquakes in the central U.S. including Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. The organization serves as the coordinating hub for the multi-state region and as a partnership of organizations to mediate disasters and save lives caused by earthquakes in the central U.S.

MSV is expected to shake things up with their new satellite, MSV-1, expected to launch in 2009 and based on Boeing's GeoMobile platform (like Thuraya, but bigger). Wait a minute: where's California? They have their own earthquake people. But central U.S.? There was an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale in the Wabash Valley on 18 April 2008, via The Southern Illinoisan:

An earthquake centered in southern Illinois rocked people awake across the Midwest early Friday, surprising residents unaccustomed to such seismic activity.

The quake just before 4:37 a.m. was centered 6 miles from West Salem, Ill., and 66 miles west of Evansville, Ind.

Initially pegged as a 5.4 earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate to give it a value of 5.2.

West Salem is in Edwards County, and dispatcher Lucas Griswold says the sheriff's department received several calls about the earthquake but only reports of minor damage and no injuries.

``Oh, yeah, I felt it. It was interesting,'' Griswold said. ``A lot of shaking.''

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Australian Broadcasting is reporting a new satellite system for predicting earthquakes using ionospheric dimpling:

The theory suggests that much of earth's rock has soaked up water, which has later been exposed to extreme heat and pressure inside the earth. Those conditions break apart the water and create the electrically conductive crystals that exist inside most rocks, as well as byproducts such as oxygen.

As pressure builds before an earthquake, the oxygen molecules inside the rocks undergo chemical reactions, creating a positive electrical charge that radiates out toward the earth's surface.

"It's similar to how an electrical charge radiates through a battery," says Freund.

The charge creates a subtle fluorescent, infrared glow and a magnetic field one to two weeks before a major earthquake.

That light shines into space, the theory goes, where satellites can register the change.

Low-resolution thermal cameras aboard the proposed satellites would scan the earth to detect earthquake precursors, says Eves.

The positively charged magnet creates a dimple, up to 20 kilometres deep, in the earth's atmosphere by attracting negatively charged ions from as far away as 600 kilometres above the surface of the Earth.

To detect this ionospheric dimpling, the satellites would monitor the existing Global Positioning Satellite System with three small GPS antennas on its side. As each GPS satellite comes up over the horizon, its signal would pass through the ionosphere. Any dimpling would change that signal.

The theory is not without skeptics.

"As far as I know, there is no published research to suggest that this will work," says Dr Mike Blanpied, who is with the United States Geologic Survey's Earthquake Hazards Program.

This early-warning system was reported by the Wall Street Journal last month:

Early in May, NASA earth scientists monitoring infrared images of the earth noticed unusual patterns in southwestern China. One sent an email to colleagues, noting: Something is happening in Sichuan province.

For Friedemann Freund, a chemist-turned-NASA geophysics researcher, it was more support for his simple, though hotly contested theory: Earthquakes are the culmination of drawn-out physical processes that can be tracked sometimes more than a week ahead of the main event.
 
The main idea: Rocks put under enough pressure -- for example, when tectonic plates shift -- turn into batteries. The resulting electrical currents can travel miles into the earth, Dr. Freund says. The infrared images observed by NASA, for example, were concentrated several hundred miles from the epicenter of the roughly 8.0 magnitude earthquake that struck on May 12, killing at least 34,000 people.

Dr. Freund describes his discovery as simple, made at 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in early 2005 just before he and his graduate students finished packing up a temporary laboratory they had been using. For experiment No. 167, one for the road, they decided to use a copper contact to test whether a squeezed rock emitted a current. It did.

"This is something that should have been discovered 50 years ago," he said.

Certainly, people have tried. For more than a century, researchers have debated the pursuit of the "holy grail" of earthquake prediction. There is still no widespread support for linking electromagnetic signals, infrared emissions or atmospheric changes to an approaching quake.

Satellites are used to communicate seismic data, and transmitting videos, of course. The prospect of being able to predict such events many days in advance seems like a real possibility. Count on the Smithsonian to present it, probably based on a published piece by Dr. Ouzounov of George Mason University.