ABS Gains $215 Million in Bank Financing

Asia Broadcast Satellite has secured $215 million in new funding. It has closed a $215 million five-year senior bank loan from a financial consortium comprising Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, Société Générale and Standard Chartered Bank.

The financing will be used to fully fund the capital expenditure program for ABS-2, a high-powered satellite to be launched at 75 degrees East in 2013, as well as to provide funds for future strategic initiatives and acquisitions.

ABS-2 will really be the centerpiece satellite for the ABS satellite fleet going forward. Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) won the contract to build the satellite late last year. ABS-2 will have more than 12kW of payload power and up to a total of 87 active C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band transponders across 10 different beams bringing increased capacity and transmission power to the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and CIS/Russia. The ABS-2 spacecraft is based on Space Systems/Loral’s 1300 satellite bus, with a separated mass in excess of 6,000 Kg at launch and is designed for 15 years of operational life.

Fibertek Contracted for NASA’s ICESat-2 Mission

NASA has selected Fibertek to design, develop, fabricate, test and deliver laser systems to be used for the ice, cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission. The ICESat-2 satellite is scheduled to launch in 2016.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the ICESat-2 Project. The total estimated value of the cost, plus award fee contract, is just under $27 million. The period of performance is from the date of award through launch plus 38 months.

ICESat-2 is the second generation of the ICESat observatories. ICESat-2 will use precision laser-ranging techniques to measure the topography of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the thickness characteristics of Arctic and Antarctic Sea ice. ICESat-2 supports NASA’s Earth Science program by helping scientists develop a better scientific understanding of the Earth system and its response to natural or human-induced changes.

Northrop Grumman Authorized to Proceed on Weather System Contract

Northrop Grumman has received authorization and funding to proceed on a Department of Defense weather satellite system projected for launch in 2018.

The Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) will provide enhanced weather information critical to battlefield operations, and deliver it more quickly to the warfighter than current systems.

The DWSS is required to provide reliable, high-fidelity, near real-time information about weather and environmental conditions around the world to inform aviation, naval and coastal marine operations and land assets. DWSS will also provide information needed to protect space-based assets from solar and other space weather conditions.

ViaSat Wins $40 Million Thales Alenia Space Deal

ViaSat has won a new contract worth $40 million from Thales Alenia Space. ViaSat will supply Ka-band transmit-receive (T/R) modules to Thales Alenia Space for the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation.

Thales Alenia Space is building the next set of 66 Iridium LEO satellites, and plans to integrate the T/R modules to build cross links between satellites and feeder links to earth terminals to facilitate point-to-point routing of data over the network.

Iridium NEXT is scheduled to begin launching in 2015. The new network will maintain the Iridium constellation architecture of 66 cross-linked LEO satellites covering 100 percent of the globe.