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Iridium Satellite LLC announced Nov. 20 its appointment of Lieutenant General John Campbell, U.S. Air Force (retired), as the global mobile satellite services provider’s executive vice president for government affairs. Campbell joins Iridium from Applied Research Associates in Alexandria, Va., where he served since 2004 as its principal for defense and intelligence following a 32-year...

Claudio Martini, governor of Tuscany, has requested a Rai International satellite channel to promote Italian tourism worldwide. In a Nov. 18 letter to Rai president Claudio Petruccioli, Italian culture minister Francesco Rutelli and regional conference president Vasco Errani, Martini presented his proposal at the international convention on tourism of Confesercenti in Borgo la Bagnaia, Siena....

PTC and Starchaser Industries, a privately held high-technology company, have renewed their commitment to Pro/Engineer, a PTC integrated CAD/CAM/CAE system, for an additional three years, PTC announced Nov. 16. Starchaser specializes in the development, operation and commercialization of space-related products for the microsatellite and space tourism markets. PTC Pro/Engineer in combination with Pro/Engineer Mechanica is...

Micro-Ant Inc. has announced the development of its Blade technology, which as applied to microstrip antennas, enhances electrical performance while allowing for smaller, cheaper, and easier production and use. The Fall River, Mass.-based company claims Blade technology increases overall antenna efficiency, allowing an antenna to be considerably smaller than traditional designs while meeting similar performance...

Arqiva reached an agreement Nov. 17 to acquire the full-time service components of BT’s Satellite Broadcast Services business for 25 million British pounds ($47.2 million) in cash. The Satellite Broadcast Service unit provides full-time and occasional-use satellite services from six teleports — three in the United Kingdom, two in the United States and one in...

The U.S. Air Force is developing an orbital test vehicle, based on the design of a NASA X-37 technology demonstrator, to continue full-scale development and on-orbit testing of an unmanned, long-duration, reusable space vehicle. The OTV effort takes advantage of industry and government investments by Air Force, NASA, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency....

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), within the framework of the United Nations Program on Space Applications, will hold a five-day training course on the International Satellite System for Search and Rescue (Cospas-Sarsat) with the Department of Transport of the Republic of South Africa. The training course, to take place in Cape...

Sirius Canada Inc. signed an exclusive multi-year strategic partnership to become the official satellite radio partners of the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA), the organizations announced. Under the Show Your Card & Save program, the CAA will provide incentives and offers on Sirius products and services to the CAA’s 4.9 million members.

Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) claims it has been awarded the first governmental Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) contract designed to harness signals from all current and planned positioning satellite systems. The Tennessee Department of Transportation will use the satellite reference network that will rely on signals from GPS, Russia’s Glonass and Europe’s planned Galileo system....

Stratos Global Corp. has signed a strategic alliance agreement with Seamobile Enterprises to deliver GSM and CDMA wireless voice and data to the U.S. government and military markets, Stratos announced Nov. 16. Under the agreement, the two companies will develop system to enable wireless users at sea or in remote locations to use of personal...