Orbitrax

Cannes, May 17, 2012 – Thales Alenia Space, today announced the.conclusion of the arbitration surrounding the satellite manufacturing contract. The arbitration tribunal rules that the terms provided for in the 2009 amended and restated contract between the Thales and Globalstar no longer govern any future purchase.

The tribunal found a termination for convenience of the entirety of Phase 3 and consequently, Globalstar owes approximately Euro 53 million in contract cancellation charges. The tribunal finally ruled that Globalstar can only order more satellites on the basis of a mutually agreed price and contractual terms
The parties are closely working together to find a global solution.

Reynald Seznec, CEO of Thales Alenia Space commented: “We are interested in addressing the issues related to the purchase of additional satellites. We shall work together with Globalstar management with a view to find a solution for the benefit of all stakeholders. We thank all parties for their continued assistance as we go through this process”.

Tmcnet.com

By Doug Mohney, Contributing Editor

Washington DC – This week Globalstar (News – Alert) announced it reached profitability for the first time in four years, generating $1.6 million of adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2011. But it is CEO Jay Monroe’s vision of providing high quality, reliable mobile satellite voice services for the masses that provides the more interesting story.

Monroe’s vision is to sign up millions of customers, utilizing the full capacity of Globalstar’s new second generation satellite network. Eighteen of the 24 satellites are already on orbit, with the final launch of the last six satellites to complete the new constellation taking place later this year.

“It’s a 15 year asset,” Monroe said, referring to the expected on-orbit life of the satellites. “I want to be able to use that asset to its fullest as soon as I can, otherwise it’s just a waste.”
Globalstar is aggressively pricing its voice service in comparison to competitors Inmarsat (News – Alert) and Iridium. The GSP-1700 satellite phone lists at $500, with a one-time activation fee of $50 and a monthly fee of $40/month with unlimited voice and data on a one year term under the company’s Evolution II Plan. SMS text messaging and voice mail are included in the price, but there are roaming and international long distance charges if you make calls outside the home area of North America and the Caribbean.

Inmarsat resellers offer the ISatPhone Pro for a list price of $599 with plans starting at $20 per month just to keep the phone on and $3.00/minute to “discount” plans of 400 minutes for $300/month with a $1 per minute after that — plus $5 per month for voice mail. New Iridium (News – Alert) phones are more compact, but start pricing at $1200, with the entry level plan starting at $60/month including 40 minutes of service with $1.60 per minute for extra minutes along with the $5/month for voice mail.

But it’s more than just price points in play when comparing services. Monroe says Globalstar’s new network delivers the best quality voice service — “like a regular [landline] phone,” he boasts — due to the use of Qualcomm (News – Alert) codecs and 8K worth of bandwidth, plus less than 60 ms of latency due to the lower orbits of the 24 satellite constellation. Inmarsat voice calls suffer from delays introduced by placing calls using a relay station 22,500 miles above the earth, while Iridium’s existing satellites have a data rate of around 2,400 bits per second if you’ve got good signal, meaning there’s a lot of compression going on for a voice call.

Monroe is also aiming for a much wider set of distribution channels, including Big Box stores. Inmarsat and Iridium phones and service are only available through more specialized resellers, while Globalstar plans to leverage its existing relationships with names like Best Buy (News – Alert), Cabela’s, and REI to make its phones available as off-the-shelf items. Globalstar already sells its SPOT satellite messaging and rescue hardware through retail channels, so it isn’t a big leap to start to put phones in those channels.

In this mass market model, a Globalstar phone would be the “other” device kept around for use by people who are in or frequently travel to places that don’t have good cell phone coverage — Monroe cited the ski areas around Colorado — as well as part of an emergency preparedness strategy for people in natural-disaster prone areas.

A look at the “unofficial launch schedule” from Baikonur shows that Q3 2012 will be a very busy quarter for the Soyuz launch teams/facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

July 2012 has both a manned Soyuz-FG launch on July 15th (02:37 UTC), and a Progress re-supply launch using the Soyuz-U on July 31 (19:57 UTC)

A Soyuz 2.1B ( Resurs-P No. 1) is scheduled to launch from the 31/6 complex in August.

While the 31/6 launch complex is currently scheduled to launch two Soyuz 2.1B variants in September, 2012. (Bion-M No. 1/September 10th), (Meteor-M No. 2, Baumanets-2/Late September).

Given the current launch schedule at Baikonur, it appears that there may be an available launch slot in August for Launch 4 operations. However, if that slot is not workable due to the continued delay of satellites deliveries by Thales, then Launch 4 could slip into early October.

Orbitrax does not expect delays in Launch 4 activities to materially impact the relaunch of duplex services predicted for April 2012.

Over the past several weeks, Globalstar has raised three (M092, M084, M080) of the December 28, 2011 launch satellites to a “intermediate phasing orbit”. While in early January, Globalstar also raised the last of the July 13 launched satellites (M083) to what appears to be a lower than typical operational altitude “holding pattern”.

Orbitrax predicts some sort of “mass operational raise” in the next month where all of the remaining Launch 1,2, and 3 satellites (possibly including software modified M076) will be deemed operational over a very short time period during the “mass raise operation”. It is then predicted that Globalstar will officially relaunch commercial duplex service availability.

Below is a orbital snapshot of the current satellites that have been raised to an “intermediate orbit”.

M080 launched December 28, 2011 pictured below:

M084 launched December 28, 2011 pictured below:

M092 launched December 28, 2011 pictured below

M083 launched July 13, 2011 pictured below

Sarantel, is a Wellingborough UK based manufacturer and designer of high-performance miniature antennas for portable wireless applications. During their March 2, 2012 preliminary results announcement, the company announced that it was developing a compact, high performance antenna for the Globalstar Network under contract by the US Government.

“During the year the Group received development funding from a major US defense contractor and from the US Government to develop high performance GPS antennas as well as compact, high performance antennas for the Globalstar network. This has helped Sarantel expand the reach of its technology and establish key partnerships which it intends to leverage to increase future sales.”

As a side note, there has also been unsubstantiated reports of a possible DoD Gateway being constructed in Colorado to support North American covert activities.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/22/did-the-fcc-try-to-drive-a-lightsquared-competitor-into-bankruptcy/

The Daily Caller has obtained documents, emails and communications showing how President Barack Obama’s Federal Communications Commission demolished wireless broadband company LightSquared’s competition through a pattern of regulatory decisions apparently aimed at establishing an “open-access” Internet in the United States.

The FCC successfully green-lighted LightSquared’s corporate formation in 2009 by allowing Wall Street hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners to purchase majority ownership in satellite company SkyTerra. A major obstacle that still remained in LightSquared’s way was competitor GlobalStar.

GlobalStar had a similar operation to the one LightSquared was building at the time. A major difference, though, was GlobalStar’s already-orbiting satellites, and the broadband Internet access it was already providing to Americans in rural areas of the country.

GlobalStar leased terrestrial spectrum to Open Range Communications, a company that provided broadband Internet access to customers in underserved parts of rural America. Open Range’s business model depended on a 2008 loan, worth $264 million, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service.

In 2008 the FCC gave GlobalStar a 16-month waiver from so-called “gating” rules, which required it to guarantee that its satellite service would be continuously available everywhere it offered broadband service, and also required it to maintain spare satellites in case of an urgent need. GlobalStar had said the issues its system faced would be fixed when it could launch 24 new satellites, which it planned to do by July 1, 2010.

The waiver was meant to allow GlobalStar and Open Range to continue building their networks while GlobalStar fixed those issues. Open Range depended on GlobalStar for its continued operation.

Then, the unthinkable happened: On April 6, 2009 an earthquake struck L’Aquila, Italy, damaging a factory that made component parts essential to GlobalStar’s satellites. The factory closed, reopening eight months later in early December 2009. (RELATED: Documents: LightSquared shaping up as the FCC’s Solyndra)

Citing the earthquake and disruptions because of the global financial meltdown, GlobalStar filed a request with the Obama administration’s FCC on Dec. 14, 2009, asking for an additional temporary waiver from the agency’s requirements so it could continue building its network.

The FCC didn’t acknowledge receipt of the extension request until March 5, 2010, and didn’t open it up for public notice until four weeks later, on April 2.

During the months while GlobalStar’s request languished in the FCC’s slow-moving bureaucracy, the agency was helping to finalize the sale of SkyTerra to Harbinger. That company would ultimately become LightSquared.

On Feb. 26, 2010, one week before the FCC acknowledged GlobalStar’s request, Harbinger and the FCC agreed on conditions that would forbid LightSquared from selling to Verizon and AT&T any spectrum it would later acquire.

Verizon and AT&T are the nation’s two largest wireless carriers.

FCC spokeswoman Tammy Sun did not answer when The Daily Caller asked her to explain why GlobalStar’s waiver extension request was delayed for 75 days, during the same time the FCC was finalizing its deal with LightSquared executives.

Also during those late spring months in 2010, several advocacy groups funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros were advocating for the adoption of “open-access” Internet rules. Soros’ Open Society Institute has donated more than $1 million to the four organizations that comprise the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition. He is reported to have invested $200 million personally in Harbinger.

Public Interest Spectrum Coalition member groups hold the position that spectrum “belongs to the public” and should be subject to as little corporate influence as possible. Their goal is to create a community-oriented, taxpayer-subsidized and highly regulated broadband system, essentially making Internet access a public utility.

View the article here

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/22/documents-show-obamas-fcc-used-regulatory-muscle-to-destroy-lightsquareds-competition/

Bold Yellow line indicates current position of December 28th launched satellites in relation to the orbital position of the rest of the 2007/2010/2011 launched satellites. The satellites in the December 28th launch are moving East to West in relation to the other properly phased satellites (Turquoise colored). As is clearly visible, there is a large “hole” (Western Africa/North Atlantic Ocean) in the constellation snapshot immediately to the West of the Bold Yellow line which again represents the current position of the December 28th launched satellites. Orbitrax estimates orbit-raising in mid-March or early April, 2012. When all the current on-orbit satellites are properly phased and operational. Orbitrax estimates call availability in the 92-95% range and sufficient to officially re-establish duplex service.

According to our Russian sources. Mission ST-25, Launch-4, may be delayed until as late as early August 2012. The primary cause of delay is pegged once again to the inability of Thales Alenia Space to deliver functional satellites. According to the AMENDED AND RESTATED CONTRACT N° GINC-C-06-0300 dated January 18, 2010. The Thales contract required delivery of the fourth batch of satellites that would comprise Mission ST-25 on April 06, 2011. The April 06, 2011 date included delays associated with delay of payments and the destruction of the satellite manufacturing facility in L’Aquila and represented a nearly 9 month delay associated only with delays associated with the destruction of the satellite manufacturing facility in L’Aquila.

Yet, it appears that the Batch 4 satellites are not expected to be delivered to Baikonur until around May, 2012, indicating nearly a 13 month delay from the previously contractually bound delivery dates.

In December 2011, it was noted that 3 satellites associated with Batch 4 were already on the ground at Baikonur. We are now told that all 3 of those satellites were returned to Thales facilities in Rome. It also should be noted that the start of a six week ground processing schedule in May would like result in the requirement for a launch in July 2012, yet there are already 2 Soyuz launches to the ISS scheduled in July 2012, which could indicate that the launch of ST-25 could be delayed into early August 2012.