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

To: Valueman who wrote (6063)	5/7/1999 12:52:00 AM
From: Mr. Adrenaline	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

On Orion 3 salvage. My opinion, no salvage is possible. Here's a quick why: 1 - Shuttle rescue. Technically possible, but a HS-601 is not man rated. In the post Challenger era, it isn't going to be brought back to earth. You can get 99% of the fuel off of it, but not 100%. Even if this aspect is disregarded, NASA has a very full manifest with the Space Station. NASA did rescue a Hughes built Intelsat 6 a few years back by attaching a PAM to it. I think that if a rescue was possible, this would be it. But the expense of the shuttle flight, training and preparation of the crew would probably pale in comparison to a replacement. I'm not sure how Intelsat justified it when it did it long ago, but I suspect NASA wanted the experience of in orbit rescue, etc. and underwrote the cost. My guess. And then, if Hughes has the solar arrays deployed, you can kiss of the PAM based salvage anyway. The kick from a PAM would snap those arrays off! (or at least stress them past design limits) 2- Exotic lunar flybys. Two Christmas' ago Hughes impressed the heck out of me, at the very least, when the rescued a satellite stuck in GEO transfer orbit, but at a high inclination, when a Proton got it to the right altitude, but failed to remove the inclination. Frequent readers of my babblings will remember that inclination is expensive to remove. While the moon is a long way from GEO in distance traveled, it isn't that far in delta-V. A little boost to the moon, gravity assist to remove inclination, and then back down to GEO. Very impressive work. Note that it was "cheaper" to go to the moon and back than to remove the inclination at GEO. Problem is, Orion 3 is stuck in LEO. I don't know how much fuel is on board, nor the Isp of its on-board propulsion. But I can make some good guesses. My guesses lead me to believe that it doesn't have the kick to get up to GEO transfer orbit, let alone to the moon and then back. Here's another way to think of it... Out of all the fuel on board, you use about 80% of it to get on station, and the remainder (20%) keeps you there. SO, their 80% was going to get them from 15,000x200 km to 42,000x42,000 km or so. So, if they can get to 15,000x200 with less than the 20%, they could have a mission. Now they got to get from about 160x1400 km to 15,000x200 on the 20%. But it took 80% to get from 15,000x200 to 42,000x42x000. Does that put it in perspective? I'm going to fall short of saying it is a lost cause. I've learned never to under estimate human ingenuity when your back is against the wall. I didn't put much thought into the problem, other than punching a few buttons on a calculator. I'm not optimistic, however. Mr A

To: Valueman who wrote (6063)	5/7/1999 3:44:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 10852

Firm Alleges That Loral Bribed Korean Officials to Secure a Contract May 7, 1999 By ANDY PASZTOR Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL LOS ANGELES -- A small South Korean defense firm has alleged in a lawsuit filed here that Loral Corp. bribed a pair of Korean military officials and paid an improper $10 million commission to help it snare a major Korean radar contract in 1996. The suit was filed earlier this week in California Superior Court by Korea Supply Co., which represented the losing bidder on the surveillance-radar project for aircraft, called the "Kum Kang" project. Korea Supply has offices in Buena Park, Calif. The Loral unit was purchased by Lockheed Martin Corp. after the alleged improprieties took place. The suit names Lockheed Martin and its Tactical Defense Systems unit as defendants but doesn't allege they did anything wrong. The complaint contends, among other things, that Loral submitted a higher bid than the competition but ended up chosen to do the work for $270 million as a result of alleged "bribes and sexual favors." The lawsuit doesn't identify the "two military officers" allegedly involved. The suit names as a defendant "a weapons system broker" it identifies as Linda Kim, whose company has offices in Saugus, California. A Lockheed spokesman said company officials "categorically" deny the allegations, which they believe are based on "unsubstantiated media reports" in Korea. The spokesman said the company will defend against the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for Loral had no immediate comment. A woman who answered the telephone at Ms. Kim's residence said she wasn't there. Korean government officials and lawmakers began looking into similar allegations last year. Korean press reports have indicated that U.S. intelligence agencies have a file on the controversy, including Loral's responses about hiring Ms. Kim. The lawsuit also alleges that Loral's dealings with Ms. Kim and her company violated federal antibribery laws and also exceeded payments allowed under U.S. foreign military sales. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as "disgorgement of unjust profits." The plaintiff alleges it was illegally deprived of more than $30 million in commissions its stood to receive if the Korean government had chosen its Canadian client for the work. Return to top of page \| Format for printing Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Valueman who wrote (6063)	5/7/1999 7:21:00 AM
From: Jeff Vayda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Vman: Listened to the CC last night. IMO a deal is done. It may not be News Corp, but a deal is definitely done. Bernie got reprimanded from counsel when he commented on a deal with one of the top 4 media concerns. Additionally, later in the CC the question of Telstar 6 and & utilization rates came up. Bernie said T6 was something like 30-40% at the present. (mostly C band) He went on to say the T7 is 50% reserved before launch. Then the kicker. He stated they expected T6 to be 70-80% and T7 to be 80% full by the end of the year. (numbers are rounded as I did not take any notes during the call and I err on the conservative side) The point is you dont fill up like that without a major user about to come on board. They are serious about pulling T7 from Atlas III and are looking into it. They have about 3 weeks to make a choice (before hyper load at Astrotech) Orion III was a give away when compared T7 and near term revenue prospects. Jeff Vayda