Assuresat Company

They were beeping one minute and then they suddenly went silent--45 million pagers in all--as a $250-million satellite hovering over Earth spun out of control and stopped transmitting. It was May 1998, the first time the nation was exposed to the fragility of space-based telecommunications that it had come to depend upon for pager communications, data transmissions and much of its television.

A private El Segundo company that hoped to be the first to orbit backup rental satellites has filed a lawsuit against Boeing Co., alleging that the world's largest satellite maker stole its idea and then put it out of business. The lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by AssureSat Inc. comes more than two years after the start-up firm lost key financing to launch the satellite operation. In the lawsuit, AssureSat claims that executives at Hughes Space & Communications Co.

A private El Segundo company that hoped to be the first to orbit backup rental satellites has filed a lawsuit against Boeing Co., alleging that the world's largest satellite maker stole its idea and then put it out of business. The lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by AssureSat Inc. comes more than two years after the start-up firm lost key financing to launch the satellite operation. In the lawsuit, AssureSat claims that executives at Hughes Space & Communications Co.

They were beeping one minute and then they suddenly went silent--45 million pagers in all--as a $250-million satellite hovering over Earth spun out of control and stopped transmitting. It was May 1998, the first time the nation was exposed to the fragility of space-based telecommunications that it had come to depend upon for pager communications, data transmissions and much of its television.