Communication Satellites

Iridium, whose launch last year of the first global satellite telephone network made its distinctive phones the latest high-tech status symbol, is reeling in the wake of wider-than-expected first-quarter losses and the departure of several key executives. The financially struggling company, backed by Motorola Inc. and Japanese electronics equipment maker Kyocera, said Monday that its loss for the quarter would be $505 million, or $3.45 a share, compared with a loss of $205 million, or $1.

A dummy satellite orbited 23,000 miles above Earth on Monday, signaling success for the innovative launch pad floating in the Pacific Ocean at the equator. The demonstration was a critical step for Sea Launch Co., which has put $500 million into the first commercial marine-based launch system in hopes of capturing a chunk of the growing business of boosting communications satellites. "The mission is considered a complete success," said Tim Dolan, spokesman for Boeing Co.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Sydney, Australia, writing about how businesspeople can stay in touch when they're traveling around the world. But business trips don't always take you to urban areas where communications and even electricity can be taken for granted. This week I'm in the Amazon rain forest in Peru covering an educational project, but just because I'm more than 100 miles from the nearest town with electricity and phone service doesn't mean that I have to be out of contact.

The Clinton administration has decided to reject a request by Hughes Electronics Corp. to sell a communications satellite to China, saying that the transaction poses a threat to national security because the technology could be used by the Chinese military, an official said Monday. In the first such negative licensing decision since controversy has engulfed the issue of technology transfers to China in recent months, U.S.

Boeing Co. says its Seal Beach-based space unit has signed a deal with Loral Space & Communications to use Boeing's Delta II rockets for seven communications satellite launches over the next 15 months. The deal is worth about $385 million. Each of the Deltas will carry four satellites--for a total of 28--that will be part of the Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd. "constellation" of 56 satellites that will enable the company to offer mobile and fixed telecommunications services around the world.

When federal officials recently launched an effort to make Intel Corp.'s Pentium microprocessors impervious to satellite-killing radiation, it highlighted a growing vulnerability in the U.S. communications infrastructure: the threat of nuclear terrorism faced by commercial satellites.

In the latest consolidation of the nation's satellite television business, DirecTV has agreed to acquire its partner United States Satellite Broadcasting Co. in a stock and cash transaction valued at about $1.3 billion. The deal, long considered inevitable by Wall Street, is expected to strengthen DirecTV's lead in the satellite television business at a time when the El Segundo-based company faces increasing pressure from its chief rival, EchoStar Communications Corp. of Englewood, Colo.

In a deal that could shift the power in the satellite television business, EchoStar Communications Corp. has agreed to buy satellite assets from News Corp. and MCI WorldCom Inc. in a stock transaction valued at about $1.25 billion. The deal will give the Colorado-based provider more capacity in the sky than market leader DirecTV, allowing EchoStar to add more channels and new Internet services.

What do you get for those digerati on your holiday gift list who already have everything that's high-tech? A 450-megahertz PC? Too boring and quickly out of date. A digital TV set? Not until there's more digital programming. A Furby? Too obvious. To help get you through the shopping wars this year, we asked Times staff technology reporters each to nominate one must-have item. (For the hard-core gamers on your list, see Aaron Curtiss' guide to video games and gear on C6.