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Business briefs: April 5
Posted: Sat, Apr 6, 2002, 10:12 AM ET (1512 GMT)
- Eutelsat announced Friday that it has signed a contract with Alcatel to purchase a refurbished satellite for launch later this year on the inaugural Delta 4 launch. The satellite was built in the late 1990s as Eutelsat W1, but was damaged during a 1998 fire at Alcatel's assembly facility. Now known as Eutelsat W5, the Spacebus 3000-series satellite will be launched in mid-July on the first Delta 4 Medium-Plus launch.
- EchoStar plans to stop marketing Internet access via satellite, the Wall street Journal reported Friday. EchoStar is reportedly backing away from StarBand, its joint venture with Gilat Satellite Networks, in an effort to prove to federal regulators that a merger with DirecTV is the only way to ensure that satellite Internet access remains viable in the US.
- RADARSAT-2, the Canadian radar imaging remote sensing satellite, passed a critical design review (CDR) for its payload, MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) announced Friday. RADARSAT-2 is a public-private partnership with the Canadian Space Agency and MDA; the spacecraft will be operated by MDA after its late-2003 launch.
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