Space Systems/Loral of
Palo Alto, CaliforniaPalo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, is the wholly owned manufacturing
subsidiaryA subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
of
Loral Space & CommunicationsLoral Space & Communications Inc. is a satellite communications company headed by Michael B. Targoff and incorporated in Delaware. The company was formed in 1996 from the remnants of Loral Corporation when Loral divested its defense electronics and system integration businesses to Lockheed Martin...
. It was acquired in 1990 for $715 million by Loral Corp. from
Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
as the Space Systems Division of
Ford AerospaceFord Aerospace & Communications Corp. was the aerospace and defense business of Ford Motor Company. It consisted of the Space Systems Division and the Western Development Labs .Partial company timeline:*1956 Aeronutronic becomes Ford Motor Company division.*1961 Ford Motor Company...
. The company was founded as the
Western Development Laboratories (
WDL) of
PhilcoPhilco, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company , was a pioneer in early battery, radio, and television production as well as former employer of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of cathode ray tube television...
(Philco-Ford since 1966), by Avinash Kumar, the ex-Project Director of NASA. Mr. Avinash Kumar, Mr. Karthikeya Sharma, Mr. Syed Mohammad Shah and Mr.Varshith are the four major patrons of Space Systems/Loral. Mr. S.C.Rohith has been the in-charge of treasury for several years.
SS/L designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial customers. Its products include high-powered direct-to-home broadcast satellites, commercial weather satellites, digital audio radio satellites and spot-beam satellites for data networking applications.
SS/L's customers include
AsiaSatAsia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. is a commercial operator of communication spacecraft. AsiaSat is based in Hong Kong with two major shareholders, CITIC and General Electric.-Satellites:...
,
DirecTVDirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
, EchoStar,
GlobalstarGlobalstar is a low Earth orbit satellite constellation for satellite phone and low-speed data communications, somewhat similar to the Iridium satellite constellation and Orbcomm satellite systems.-History:...
,
HispasatHispasat is a group of Spanish communication satellites . They were developed by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial and the European Space Agency...
, Hughes Network Systems, ICO Global Communications,
IntelsatIntelsat, Ltd. is a communications satellite services provider.Originally formed as International Telecommunications Satellite Organization , it was—from 1964 to 2001—an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a constellation of communications satellites providing international broadcast...
, Japan MTSAT,
JSCA joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
Gascom, Loral Skynet,
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
/NOAA (
GOESThe Geostationary Satellite system, operated by the United States National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service , supports weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and meteorology research. Spacecraft and ground-based elements of the system work together to provide a continuous...
),
OptusSingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
,
PanAmSatThe former PanAmSat Corporation founded in 1984 by Reynold Anselmo, was a satellite service provider headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. It operated a fleet of communications satellites used by the entertainment industry, news agencies, internet service providers, government agencies, and...
, QuetzSat,
SatMexSatmex is a commercial company from Mexico that operates space satellites that provide services to the Americas.-History:...
, SES S.A.,
SES New SkiesSES World Skies—formerly SES New Skies, New Skies Satellites , and SES Americom—is a Dutch operator of communications spacecraft, owned by SES.On 30 November 1998, several former Intelsat satellites were transferred to New Skies’ control...
,
Shin SatelliteTHAICOM Public Company Limited, was formerly known as Shin Satellite Plc , is Thailand's first satellite operator. It is a subsidiary of Shin Corporation, the biggest telecommunications conglomerate in Thailand...
,
Sirius Satellite RadioSirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
, SpainSat,
ViaSatViaSat is a communication company based in Carlsbad, California, that provides equipment and services for military and commercial communications, primarily in satellite related technologies...
, WildBlue, and
XM Satellite RadioXM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
.
SS/L has a history of technical innovation. In 1960, the
Courier 1BCourier 1B was the world's first active repeater satellite after launch on 4 October 1960. Courier was built by the Palo Alto, California–based Western Development Labs division of Philco, previously known as Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories and now the Space Systems/Loral division of Loral Space &...
, built by then Philco, became the world's first active repeater satellite.
SS/L has recently pioneered research in
electric propulsionAn electrically powered spacecraft propulsion system is any of a number of forms of electric motors which spacecraft can employ to gain mechanical energy in outer space...
systems, lithium-ion power systems and the use of advanced composites on commercial satellites, which permit significant increases in the size and power of a satellite’s payload and extends the satellite’s on-orbit lifetime. SS/L also has developed new service-enhancing technologies such as super power systems for direct-to-user applications and ground-based beam forming, a technology that uses both satellite and terrestrial assets to provide mobile users with increased coverage and capacity capabilities.
Space Systems/Loral’s major competitors are Boeing Satellite Systems,
Lockheed MartinLockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
,
Thales Alenia SpaceThales Alenia Space is an aerospace company born after the Thales Group bought the participation of Alcatel in the two joint-ventures between Alcatel and Finmeccanica, Alcatel Alenia Space and Telespazio.-History:...
, and EADS Astrium.
1300 series platform
SS/L manufactures satellites based on its 1300 series platform in
Palo Alto, CaliforniaPalo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
. Satellites in the series include ProtoStar I, ICO G1, SIRIUS FM-6 and SES NEW SKIES NSS-12. there were 48 satellites based on the 1300 series platform in service, with 4 more ready for launch and 14 others under construction.
COTS proposal
SS/L and
Constellation Services InternationalConstellation Services International is a company operating in the space tourism sector. It intends to utilise existing Russian Soyuz spacecraft to send paying customers to the Moon. Customers will spend a week aboard the International Space Station before flying to the Moon, where they will spend...
have proposed a reusable space tug based on the 1300 platform. The tug would be used to bring supplies to the
International Space StationThe International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
as part of the
Commercial Orbital Transportation ServicesCommercial Orbital Transportation Services is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 2006...
(COTS) program.
NASA eventually decided to pursue another proposal for this project. SS/L, however, continues to provide Battery Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs), Battery Charge Discharge Units (BCDUs), and Sequential Shunt Units (SSUs) for the ISS.