ICO 2 GHz Satellite Passes Thermal Vacuum Tests

By Doug Lung
published

ICO North America announced last week that its 2 GHz mobile satellite service satellite had successfully completed its thermal vacuum test milestone. The satellite is under construction at Space Systems/Loral Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif.

Bob Day, ICO’s senior vice president of Space Systems, said “These tests are designed to verify the satellite performance under the various hot and cold temperature conditions which the satellite will encounter in orbit. The Loral team has done a great job and we are very pleased with the test.”

Space Systems/Loral’s executive program director for ICO, Greg Bossert, said, “The ICO satellite which employs an advanced MSS payload with Ground Based Beam Forming is now moving on to the vibration testing phase and final performance verification in preparation for our scheduled launch later this year.”

The satellite will be combined with terrestrial communication facilities and offer wireless voice, data, video and Internet services to portable and mobile devices. Some of the frequencies the system will use are in portions of the 2 GHz band formerly allocated for broadcast auxiliary service, including newsgathering.

Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.