Wireless Matrix extends satellite deal with LightSquared until February 2016

Real-time GPS fleet management provider Wireless Matrix Corporation has performed an extension of its existing service deal with LightSquared -- a provider of wholesale mobile satellite data, voice and bandwidth leasing services. Under the agreement, LightSquared will continue to deliver satellite communication service to Wireless Matrix until the middle of February 2016. The company will be using its SkyTerra-1 satellite, known as the most powerful commercial satellite ever constructed. The satellite provides reliable, ubiquitous coverage across North America.

The contract allows Wireless Matrix to deliver service continuity for customers who use satellite service as an important part of their business. Some of these customers include energy companies that must be able to connect with their mobile workers for outage management and other unscheduled tasks, railroad operators that utilize satellite for mission-critical locomotive communications, and energy companies that require always-on monitoring of the status of fixed-site asset operations in distant locations.

In a company statement, Wireless Matrix CEO and Executive Chairman Rick Myers said: “ This service extension provides operational security for our existing satellite customers. It also provides a foundation for development of next generation satellite service offerings for the businesses we serve.”

KazSat-3 to be sent into space during first quarter of 2014

Telecommunications satellite KazSat-3 is scheduled to be launched on the first quarter of 2014 together with Russia’s Luch space vehicle -- this according to President of the National Center for Satellite-assisted Communications Viktor Lefter.

During a sitting of the KazKosmos National Space on February 13, Mr. Lefter said that the launch will rely on a Proton carrier rocket, and that work is underway within the contract signed with Russia’s OJSC.

"Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems" (ISS). “All the design works are completed”, Lefter is quoted as saying.

Kairat Kelimbetov, Kazakhstan’s Vice PM who took control of the sitting, assigned the Space Agency and the country’s Ministry of Transport and Communications to guarantee that 70% of KazSat-2 satellite’s capacities are used by the end of this year. Moreover, Mr. Kelimbetov also asked the Space Agency to launch the backup ground-based spacecraft control complex based in Almaty oblast by first of July 2013.

Designed by Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, communication satellite KazSat 2 was sent into space on July 16, 2011 and reached its orbital position late August of the same year. The satellite features 12 Ku-band transponders used for fixed communications, and 4 Ku-band transponders for TV transmissions intended for telecast, fixed satellite communication and data transmission for Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The spacecraft, which has a lifespan of 12 years, weighs about 1,330 kg. KazKosmos Vice Chairman Meirbek Moldabekov said that KazSat-2 is worth $115 million and will be recouped in a matter of four years, if the satellite is exploited at 80% of the capacities.