Navigation Satellites

The Air Force announced Monday that it will launch the fifth of a new type of military navigation satellite Wednesday. The $65-million Navstar satellite is to be carried aloft by a Delta 2 rocket to join a network of spacecraft that can tell American and allied military forces where they are to within 50 feet of any location, regardless of weather.

Radiation from the largest solar flare in four years is expected to reach the Earth Thursday and Friday, potentially interfering with communication and navigation satellites and disrupting ground-based communication networks and power grids. The rain of charged particles from the so-called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, should also enhance the northern lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, making them both more prominent and visible farther south, perhaps even into the northern tier of the United States, experts said.

A Navstar navigation satellite was rocketed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to join a network of spacecraft that guide bombers, warships, missiles and ground troops with great accuracy. A 128-foot-tall Air Force Delta 2 rocket boosted the $65-million satellite into orbit after the liftoff was delayed a day because of a problem with a fuel tank pressurization system. The Navstar satellites enable U.S.

Sprint Nextel Corp. is adding satellite navigation to its wireless data plans to set itself apart from competitors. The service, which provides driving directions and help locate businesses, will be included in plans starting at $20 a month, along with Internet browsing, digital radio and streaming video, the Reston, Va.-based company said. Rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless sell navigation separately from other services for $9.99 a month, an option Sprint also offers.

A Delta II rocket blasted off Monday and put a $65-million Air Force navigation satellite into orbit, marking McDonnell Douglas' eighth commercial rocket launch of 1989. The Delta II is built by McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. in Huntington Beach.

A Delta 2 rocket lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral carrying a $42-million Global Positioning System satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, that will join the U.S. military's orbiting constellation of navigation satellites.

Two Navy navigation satellites were launched Monday aboard a Scout rocket, and authorities were waiting to see if the satellites would enter their assigned polar orbit. The contrail from the launch was visible in the twilight sky over a wide area of Southern California. The satellites, launched at 6:57 p.m., were to enter a 600-mile circular polar orbit, he said.

A satellite that sat in museum display for more than eight years was put to work Thursday when it was launched atop a Scout rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The unlikely scenario of a museum relic being called into service began two years ago when the Air Force attempted to obtain one of the Navy's navigation satellites.

Two men armed with an ax were arrested early Sunday morning after they allegedly broke into the Rockwell International complex here and damaged a $50-million navigational satellite. Rockwell security guards apprehended the men, who had jumped a fence at the complex about 5 a.m. and entered a satellite storage room through an unlocked door, according to company spokeswoman Janet Dean. Officials said they are searching for a motive in the break-in.

The two Santa Cruz men arrested for allegedly trying to destroy a $50-million satellite at the Rockwell International complex in Seal Beach are both peace activists and believe that they were following the Book of Isaiah's mandate to "beat their swords into plowshares," friends of the men said Monday. Peter Allen Lumsdaine, 37, is the founder of the Santa Cruz-based First Strike Prevention Program, a nonviolent direct-action group opposed to the Trident nuclear missile system, friends said.

It's raining. From a blue leather La-Z-Boy on the bridge of the Bonhomme Richard, Navy Capt. Stan Degeus scans the dreary horizon in search of helicopters scheduled to land on the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship in just minutes. Visibility is low. But Degeus knows precisely where he, his crew of 1,100 and their 40,500-ton ship are. A monitor above his left shoulder displays a map of Coronado Island and San Diego Bay.

Two decks below the Princess Marla's heliport and Jacuzzi, one deck below the baby grand player piano and the satellite TV, sits a box of scientific instruments that have nothing to do with the creature comforts of the yacht's media-mogul owner. The $50,000 module of sensors and computers is designed to take the pulse of the ocean and beam back its findings--sort of a marine health report card.

Call me Wrong Way Corrigan. Give me a map and compass, and I'll find my way . . . eventually. I call it just being turned around a little. Some of my hiking companions call it something else: being lost. Whatever you call it, it's less likely to happen if you're carrying a Global Positioning System receiver. These increasingly popular and affordable units pull in signals from a U.S. military satellite network to determine latitude and longitude.

A Delta 2 rocket lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral carrying a $42-million Global Positioning System satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, that will join the U.S. military's orbiting constellation of navigation satellites.

Andrea Donnellan kneels on the barren crest of Oat Mountain and, with her Powerbook computer coupled to a tiny satellite receiver, pinpoints the shards of Southern California's broken landscape with an unsettling accuracy. It is as she suspected. The 3,477-foot-tall mountain, heaving upward since the moment of the 6.6 Northridge earthquake last month, has grown another inch since she last checked. "This is mountain-building in progress," she said.

A federal judge sentenced two anti-war activists to prison Monday, one for 18 months and the other for 24 months, for damaging a military satellite at the Rockwell International complex in Seal Beach. Peter A. Lumsdaine, 37, and Keith Joseph Kjoller, 31, both of Santa Cruz, had pleaded guilty, calling the May 10 incident an "act of conscience."

The U.S. Air Force launched the newest version of McDonnell Douglas Corp.'s Delta rocket Monday, lifting into space a $65-million navigation satellite that will help troops deployed in the Persian Gulf pinpoint their locations accurately. The satellite is built by Rockwell International Corp. in Seal Beach, and the Delta rocket is designed and partly built by McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. in Huntington Beach.

After a week of poling his canoe upstream, Tom Warren sat in the smoke of the campfire to escape the mosquitoes--and vaulted from the 19th Century to the 21st Century. Warren is retracing the steps of Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark. But where Lewis and Clark used compasses, sextants and their knowledge of the wilderness, Warren uses the Garmin global-positioning system. He punched up a satellite fix on the Lewis and Clark expedition. "We're 1.4 miles from Clark's Aug.

Two anti-war activists pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to charges that they struck a military satellite at Rockwell International with axes, causing about $2 million in damage. Before entering their pleas in U.S. District Court, Peter A. Lumsdaine, 37, and Keith J. Kjoller, 31, both of Santa Cruz, stood outside the Santa Ana courthouse and told reporters they stand by their actions.