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

To: Paul Berliner who wrote (4837)	11/5/1998 4:27:00 PM
From: bikepath	Respond to of 10852

It'd be great if they had enough satellites on orbit to worry about this!

To: Paul Berliner who wrote (4837)	11/5/1998 6:22:00 PM
From: Mr. Adrenaline	Respond to of 10852

RE leonids Message 4095206 eom Mr A PS. Yes, I am still here. Just don't have much to say

To: Paul Berliner who wrote (4837)	11/5/1998 10:34:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10852

Mr. Adrenaline wrote a very well reasoned response to the Leonids issue, but on the principal that you shouldn't believe anything posted on bulletin board, there are two public domain expert opinions readily available. First, in last weeks conference call to discuss Lor's qtrly report, Lor's president responded to a question about the Leonids with the back of envelope response that the one day Leonid meteor flux was about equivalent to a typical full year's flux, that practically no satellite losses due to meteor strikes have ever been proven, therefore the increase in risk due to Leonids is insignificant. Second, Bear Stearns hosted conference call with a Nasa scientist and chief engineers from Hughes and Loral. The call was recorded and probably B-S would provide anyone the number for a replay. The NASA guy indicated that the odds of any single satellite getting hit was between 1/1000 to 1/10000. Given the size of the satellite fleet in orbit, the odds of some satellite getting hit is pretty good, although the likelihood of significant damage due to the hit is much smaller. The Hughes and Loral reps both agreed that meteor hits are often (if not almost always) survivable; there's no question, based on space hardware returned to earth after exposure to space, that satellites are hit occasionally by meteors, but in 35 years only one satellite loss was ever attributed to a strike, and that attribution is contested. Loral does believe it once lost one string of solar cells on a spacecraft solar array (effecting power available by about 2%) due to a meteor strike. Both Loral and Hughes are beefing up there mission control staff and customer support services for the event, but otherwise aren't doing much.