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Business briefs: March 15
Posted: Sat, Mar 16, 2002, 11:14 AM ET (1614 GMT)
- International Launch Services announced Friday that it completed the first major on-pad test of the first Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 booster this week. The booster was on the launch pad for 90 hours in a variety of weather conditions as technicians loaded it with propellants and performed a simulated countdown. The first Atlas 5 launch is planned for this summer.
- NASA selected two companies, Resource 21 and DigitalGlobe, on Friday to perform studies on ways to commercially provide "Landsat-quality" earth observation data. The two companies will have nine months to perform the studies, supported by $5 million each of NASA funding. NASA will award a contract for a Landsat Data Continuity Mission in mid-2003 with data delivery beginning in 2005. Such a mission would replace the existing Landsat 7 spacecraft, but unlike Landsat 7 would be commercially owned and operated.
- The satellite radio industry is facing off against a broadband wireless technology in a battle for spectrum, Internet News reported Friday. Sirius Satellite Radio is asking the FCC to put limits on the transmitting power of equipment that uses an unlicensed band of spectrum adjacent to what it uses for radio transmissions. That unlicensed band is used by the popular 802.11, or Wi-Fi, protocol for high-speed short-range wireless data transmission. Wi-Fi proponents fear that any restrictions on their spectrum won by Sirius could kill their industry.
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