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To: Carl Yee who wrote (9301)	6/1/1999 9:21:00 PM
From: Mad2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18998

Dear Marconi and Carl Lee Follows should answer your question Best Regards, Mad2 Copyright 1998 Phillips Business Information, Inc. TELECOMS STANDARDS & APPROVALS REVIEW October 1, 1998 SECTION: Vol. 3, No. 11 LENGTH: 1273 words HEADLINE: Miscellany BODY: Satellite services delayed The opening of the first global mobile phone service, scheduled for September, has been delayed due to 'technical problems'. The revised opening date, announced by Iridium, the system operator, is 1 November. The company claims that it has received some 400, 000 enquiries from potential customers. Handsets are being supplied by Motorola and Kyocera, a Japanese manufacturer. The handsets have been awarded the GMPCS-MOU Registry Mark by the ITU. The GMPCS-MOU is an international framework, to which more than 100 organisations are signatories, designed to promote the introduction of GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite) (see TSAR Vol. 2 No. 2, November 1996 and Vol. 2 No. 10, July/August 1997). The Mark is intended to ensure the goal of unrestricted circulation of GMPCS terminals across international borders. The Mark indicates that the handset and the GMPCS system comply with the GMPCS-MOU implementation arrangements. The Iridium system already has 66 operational satellites in orbit at a height of some 500 miles and several others have been launched to provide a set of 'spares' which can be manoeuvred into position if required to replace a faulty satellite. Planning is based upon a failure rate of six per year and a five-year life for the satellites. Meanwhile the rival Globalstar system, scheduled to open in late 1999, received a major setback when it lost 12 of its satellites due to a launch rocket failure. A third rival system, operated by ICO, is scheduled to open in 2000.

To: Carl Yee who wrote (9301)	6/1/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: Mad2	Respond to of 18998

Here's some more recent information (exercpts as entire copy is too lengthy) on the issues of satelite life Copyright 1999 Federal Information Systems Corporation Federal News Service View Related Topics APRIL 7, 1999, WEDNESDAY SECTION: MAJOR LEADER SPECIAL TRANSCRIPT LENGTH: 6463 words HEADLINE: SPACE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (STDC) NEMO SATELLITE PRESS CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS: LLOYD PRESLAR, VICE PRESIDENT, STDC PAUL SETZE, CEO AND CHAIRMAN, STDC BRUCE BERKOWITZ, PRESIDENT, STDC TOM WILSON, NAVAL RESEARCH LAB, PROJECT MANAGER, NEMO NATIONAL PRESS CLUB OF WASHINGTON, D.C. LISAGOR ROOM 8:30 AM EST BODY: MR. PRESLAR: Well, first I should say that our plan is to launch a new satellite about every 30 months. NEMO 2, if you will, will be different, but the difference in the sensing and the kind of imagery will be dependent upon technology. You can conceive all kinds of combinations of sensors that might come along. QUESTION: Same bus? MR. PRESLAR: Conceivably. Bruce mentioned what he calls a model of buying an off-the-shelf bus and fixing it. Buying something off the shelf, or off an assembly and changing it into a remote sensing satellite. We would hope or expect to do that for our second satellite. And that could be a Globalstar type, it could be an Iridium type, it could be some other sort of off- the-shelf satellite. We think, and I think the industry thinks, and you all know this perhaps better than we, but the time has come in which the satellite, or the bus, is sort of a standard item. And what you put in it and what you do with it is the new frontier. QUESTION: In your Globalstar discussion, it's a single satellite, and it would be accurate to say you're not wedded to Globalstar for anything else, is that right? MR. PRESLAR: That's correct. MR. SETZE: Well, we certainly don't preclude using a Globalstar for the next one. MR. PRESLAR: That would depend on their interest, ours, the capabilities a few months or a year from now, how much power we will need for our new sensor, how much power they or another satellite could make available. But, we think this model of using something off the shelf as your basic bus is a good one, not only for us but also for others. QUESTION: Is the 30 months, is that the expected life of your power supply? MR. SETZE: No, NEMO should have a five-year life. So after the second satellite is launched, we would expect to have two operating satellites in orbit at all times. In other words, the second will go up in 30 months; the third one will go up essentially five years after the first NEMO launch. So it would be two on orbit, and so on. For the most part, we think that's about how much time we would need.