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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dragonfly who wrote (2364)	3/29/1998 10:14:00 PM
From: Matt	Respond to of 10852

Dragonfly, Absolutely. The XIPS reduces propulsion fuel mass by 85-90%. That allows Hughes to increase the spacecraft lifetime for a given amount of fuel or increase payload or some combination of both. Hughes will send up the bird with confidence because of the extensive testing they are currently performing; see the following web page. hughespace.com Fist time to post on this thread. I've thoroughly enjoyed the debates, discussions and Maurice's rants. Being a tech type, this thread has helped me understand the business risks and rewards. The zenit launches concern the hell out of me. Yea I know readware claims the risk is minimal. However, I hunger for details covering the launch failure investigation and cannot find it on the web. I just started a Satellite News subscription and am hoping it will provide some insight. Here is what I do know about the Zenit launcher. Sound technology and a very successful launch record in the 80's. Come the fall of the soviet empire, the Zenit production was reduced from mass production to "semi-custom." This interuption was the cause of the 3 launch failures in 1990 according to one web article (I didn't bookmark that page and cannot find it, sorry). I am guessing that the Zenit program lost some valuable technicians. Since 1990, about 1 Zenit per year has been launched. The last one experienced a first stage failure. To the present. Does anybody know the status of the launch failure investigation? Has Zenit been officially cleared to launch in April for its Russian customer? Who is insuring that flight? Have Loral or Boeing (Sea Launch) issued any statements. Thanks for your help on this one. Cheers, Matt

To: Dragonfly who wrote (2364)	3/30/1998 9:02:00 AM
From: Geoff	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 10852

Sorry to ask this again, but I couldn't find the old post, when is the LOR shareholder meeting? I forgot... The ion propulsion system does seem to give Hughes a nice competitive advantage. During my brief stint (2 years of hell) at the Aerospace Engineering school at Michigan, I did a lot of research work on ion propulsion, and thought that it indeed had a lot of potential. I think I may still have some documents from JPL about ion systems possible use on satellites, I will see if I can find them. Ion systems help prolong the life of the sat... it will be interesting to see more on how their testing was done, however, I have long since seperated myself from those days when I thought I wanted to be engineer, so all that drinking in school may have wiped those brain cells out... geoff