The Federal Communications Commission has dismissed the application by Satellite CD Radio Inc. (aka Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.) to launch and operate the FM-6 satellite.

The FM-6 satellite was to replace two of Sirius' satellites - FM-1 and FM-2 - and would ultimately reduce the number of satellites in Sirius' network.

Sirius will still be allowed to reapply. The reason the FCC dismissed the application is because Sirius didn't provide enough information on how the satellite would be disposed of. In other words, the space-junk strategy, or as the FCC puts it "orbital debris mitigation plans."

The agency asked for two additional items, which - for all intents and purposes - are just too darn technical to translate into a post that you're not going to read anyway.

So if you're a satellite-geek, go ahead and click the jump to read the additional requests, or read the full FCC document (PDF) yourself.

The DOJ's approval of the merger between Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. could bode well for some semiconductor suppliers, as well as allow for cheaper satellite radios, says some industry experts.

Suppliers like STMicroelectronics may fare well if the "new" Sirius decides to integrate its baseband and tuner on a single chip. ST would be able to do this with a minimal learning curve, according to Michael Kasparian, market development manager for the automotive business unit at the company. That's because ST is the sole provider of XM's baseband chipset and is one of two suppliers for Sirius' baseband chipsets, plus it also delivers tuners for both systems.

Kasparian says a redesign into a single baseband chip will require retooling, because the two basebands are currently completely different, adding that the new chip spec from Sirius could take up to a year after FCC approval.

"We'd be talking about a 65nm CMOS process for the baseband chip," said Kasparian. "If it takes longer to get the design, we may be to 45nm."

According to EE Times, the unified company could bring in economies of scale large enough to affect the entire industry. The chip's "real estate" alone delivers cost savings.

"You're buying by die size," Kasparian said. "The more you buy, the cheaper per die you can get away with, whether it's what we're charging or what you're willing to pay."

The market currently supports two distinct systems with distinct chipsets, but a single-chip solution serving both Sirius and XM would offer cost advantages.

"That would mean fewer part numbers shipping to larger volumes," said Kasparian. "That's always cheaper to do, and that kind of cost reduction would be passed on to the consumer."

[EE Times]

ICO Global Communications will be launching their satellite, the ICO G-1, from Cape Canaveral, Florida in April.

The geosynchronous satellite will be used to transmit video, navigation and emergency assistance information to mobile devices in vehicles. The service, called ICO mim (mim = "mobile interactive media") will be run in trial-mode by the end of this year, and will be offered commercially in early 2009, according to ICO executives.

ICO has spent $450-$500 million in the new program, and just spent $44 million to get the satellite insured. The launch and in-orbit insurance coverage is for up to $344 million during the launch phase and up to $278 million during the in-orbit phase.

ICO G-1, built by Space Systems/Loral, will be launched by Lockheed Martin on April 14th. The spacecraft will be shipped to the Cape this week.

[ICO]

As you probably already know by now, the US Navy is preparing to shoot down a rogue spy satellite - the event is scheduled to occur tonight at 10:30pm ET from warships located just west of Hawaii.

The satellite, known as USA-193 or NROL-21, is set to be hit by a $10 million missile - breaking it into lots of teeny-tiny pieces thanks to the 22,000 mph impact. The full tank of hydrazine fuel is hoped to explode upon impact.

And it's that 1,000lbs of frozen, toxic hydrazine fuel that's the whole reason she's getting shot out of the sky to begin with. We really don't need those deadly fumes spread over an area of two football fields. Hydrazine is similar to chlorine or ammonia in that it affects the lungs and breathing tissue.

The first shot will be fired by Aegis missile cruiser USS Lake Erie, with the USS Decatur destroyer waiting as backup just in case that first shot misses. Considering the target is 150 miles up, and they have a 10-second window to hit their mark, that's not a bad idea.

Hopefully, all that debris will burn up in the atmosphere and we'll live happily ever after. According to SatNews, over the past 50 years or so, approximately 17,000 man-made objects have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere—no one has ever been hurt by this falling debris.

Though one veteran satellite-watcher was a little startled when he realized the debris cloud would go across central Canada on it's ascending pass a few minutes after impact. After that, it'll go across a bit of western Africa and eastern Australia.

Check out the debris cloud plot after the jump...

View Larger Map

Sirius is asking the FCC permission to increase the power of several repeater towers to 2,000 Watts. The locations of each of these repeaters are listed below or you can find them in the handy map above (RSS/Email readers may need to click-through for the full effect).

• Ann Arbor, MI
• Bridgeport, CT
• Columbia, SC
• Des Moines, IA
• Flint, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Jackson, MS
• Los Angeles, CA
• Madison, WI
• Mobile, AL
• Naples, FL
• Paramus, NJ
• Raleigh-Durham, NC
• Waterbury, CT
• West Palm Beach, FL

According to Satellite Radio TechWorld, these repeaters currently operate somewhere from 150 to 800 Watt, so this increase in power should improve Sirius' repeater reach significant. Lately, the FCC hasn't had any problems granting authority for repeaters operating at or below 2,000 Watts, so hopefully the same applies here.

[Satellite Radio TechWorld]

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. has received authority from the Federal Communications Commission to operate five new repeater towers in four U.S. cities.

Located in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Miami and Houston (Houston gets two actually), the new repeater towers are rated at 2,000 Watts EiRP of average power.

Sirius applied for the towers back in July. Satellite Radio TechWorld notes that the FCC has reacted fairly quickly since adopting average power, as opposed to peak power, for its standard of power measurement.

These repeaters will operate at or below a power level that has been considered acceptable by both the FCC and WCS licensees. WCS licensees, who consistently have been a thorn in side of Sirius and XM when it comes to licensing matters, have said that repeaters at or below the 2,000 Watt threshold are unobjectionable.

[Satellite Radio TechWorld]

Space Systems/Loral has been awarded the contract by Sirius to build their sixth satellite.

Sirius FM-6, which is the crafty name for the new bird, will be a high-power satellite designed to operate in a highly inclined elliptical orbit.

Based on SS/L's 1300 platform, the Sirius FM-6 satellite will provide nearly double the power of Sirius' other satellites in orbit. Sirius FM-6 is scheduled to be completed in 2010 and will provide over 15 years of service life.

Sirius announced last year that SS/Loral would be building their next satellite - Sirius FM-5. Sirius FM-5 is to be a geostationary satellite (similar to XM's setup... incidentally SS/Loral is building the XM-5 satellite as well) and would be used to augment the constellation. The introduction of Sirius FM-6 is proof positive that Sirius intends to continue with it's current highly inclined elliptical orbit constellation setup.

Sirius did not announce the launch provider for the new satellite.

STMicroelectronics is providing the chipset for Sirius Backseat TV, which is set to be launched later this year in select 2008 model Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles.

Manufactured by Delphi, the core of the in-vehicle satellite video receiver is based on three ST chips:

• The STA210 RF tuner IC
• The STA240 channel, service and source decoder IC
• and the STA264 advanced hierarchical demodulator chip, which extracts the video stream and performs error correction on the received signal.
  

ST is also the chip supplier for XM receivers, in addition to Sirius, and is now the world's leading supplier of microchip components powering digital radio receivers.

[Sirius Uplink] 

XM has issued another update about the service outage, this time giving more color behind exactly what happened.

"We quickly identified the problem and are working hard to return to our normal levels of service. The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday today (eastern daylight time)."

XM also apologized for the downtime, and encourages users to go to XM Radio Online if you're near a computer.

Read the full statement here.

UPDATE: The statement was updated to give more clarity on the outage, and so I've updated this post to reflect the changes.

XM issued an email update with the geeky subject line "Service Degradation Alert" that gave the following info:

"You may be experiencing temporary degraded performance with your XM reception at the present time. XM is aware of the issue and working diligently to resolve it as soon as possible. We anticipate full signal strength will be restored by early Tuesday morning."

At the time of posting, I still don't have signal here in Connecticut.

As far as I know, XM-3 (Rhythm) was experiencing performance issues and needed a software update to fix. As part of the process of updating, the satellite needed to go offline while it was being readjusted. (If any XM engineers have a more detailed description, I'd love to know.)

David Cavossa, of the Satellite Industry Association, said it perfectly. "These are very complex machines," he said. "Once they're launched we can't just send the Maytag repairman up there."