Sirius disclosed today at the investor conference call that the company will delay the launch of their new satellite.

When asked about the status of Sirius' satellite launches, Sirius CFO David Frear said that the company will defer the launch of the Sirius 5 satellite from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009.

"There is nothing particularly notable about the delay," Frear said during the call.

"We don't really need the satellite from an operational perspective until mid-2010, so just based on the pacing of the program, we have elected to defer the launch by a few months," he added.

Sirius announced in mid-2006 that they plan to augment their constellation by launching a new geosynchronous satellite. Sirius 5, manufactured by Space Systems/Loral, will have an end-of-life power capability at more than 20 kilowatts and be one of the most powerful ever constructed.

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]

The USS Lake Erie scored a direct hit at 10:26pm ET last night on the failing spy satellite, leaving little else behind but pieces "nothing larger than a football," Pentagon officials said today.

Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on military space technologies, said the government has a "high degree of confidence" that the missile launched last night hit exactly where intended.

But forget all that, we all want to see the satellite go boom. Sure, the video is a little grainy, but Cartwright is kind enough to slow down the footage so we get the full "impact" (ha! get it?).

[via Engadget]

Watch the video after the jump...

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...