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News briefs: March 5
Posted: Wed, Mar 6, 2002, 7:44 AM ET (1244 GMT)
- The latest NASA communications satellite is ready for launch this Friday, the agency announced. The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite I (TDRS-I) is scheduled for launch at 5:39 pm EST (2239 GMT) Friday, at the beginning of a 40-minute window. An Atlas 2A will launch the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral. TDRS-I, the second of three new TDRS spacecraft, will provide high-speed communications for shuttle, ISS, and other missions.
- EchoStar and SES Global are close to a deal to provide satellite-based high-speed Internet service to US customers, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The two companies are expected to announce the $300-million joint venture as early as this week, perhaps at the Satellite 2002 conference in Washington. The venture would involve the construction and launch of a satellite dedicated to providing Internet services. Analysts see the venture as a potential first step in greater cooperation between the two companies, and a possible fallback position for EchoStar if its attempt to acquire DirecTV is blocked by regulators.
- The discovery of an x-ray hot spot in Jupiter's upper atmosphere is puzzling scientists. The hot spot, discovered in Jupiter's polar regions by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, is at higher latitudes than predicted by previous models for x-ray emission that used ions from Jupiter's moon Io, accelerated by Jupiter's magnetic field, to explain the emission. Scientists said they currently have no good explanation for the emission.
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