What's happening with the Sat Launch?

[John Kotches]

For Polk and the others that keep belittling Russian space hardware. The Proton launch vehicle has about a 98% success rate. It has made over 325 launches in all it's variations. The 325th launch was in April 2007. The Russians have made more space launches than the U.S. - indeed, probably more than the rest of the world combined. And I can assure you, most of their military hardware is top notch. Might I refer you to the word chauvinism.

I have issues with your mathematics. We know that ILS has launched 45 Protons times and had 5 failures. Are you saying that the other 280 proton launches have had no more than 2 failures? That's what it takes to maintain a 98% success rate.

If they fail at 5% aggregate (which is unheard of) they would have ~11 failures in the other 280 launches of the proton platform.

Convince me that they were running at > 99% (278/280) successes on proton launches outside of ILS.

 

[WiCkeDuDe]

That's interesting, because a friend of mine who lives in the same complex I live and is a DirecTV installer says almost ALL the installs he does are HD ones, and that probably 95% of all other DirecTV service calls are upgrades from SD to HD.

I believe you. I can only comment on my area nad its pretty ass backwards here. Im sure many areas have many more HD customers, but I still think overall the total percentage of HD to SD customers is small so this launch failure may not be too bad overall for dish.

 

[Scroll]

Well I feel for them they all better hope for the best.. Maybe they will learn their lesson here finally in that. Quite doing Cheap Launchs with poorly made hardware from countries like Russian. Spend the money do it right and use U.S. Hardware and U.S. launch sites..

Sorta like saying stop buying Ford & GM and start buying BMW. Sounds nice until you look at the cost difference.

 

[John Kotches]

Sorta like saying stop buying Ford & GM and start buying BMW. Sounds nice until you look at the cost difference.

As odd as this sounds, the (lack of) value of the dollar is making us fairly competitive in the world labor market.

On CNN this afternoon there was a report that BMW may be shifting more production over to the US as the labor savings is significant. True or not? I can't say but it was interesting to hear.

Best,

 

[mike123abc]

If the insurer is not going to pay for the lost years of service then they'll just scrap the whole deal instead. It doesn't matter if they can do it or now, it all depends on the money.

I bet Dish would pay even to have the satellite 5 years. This is a bad time for Dish right now, they are behind DIRECTV and waiting 4 more years to get another satellite is worth spending money to avoid.

 

[tigerfan33]

I bet Dish would pay even to have the satellite 5 years. This is a bad time for Dish right now, they are behind DIRECTV and waiting 4 more years to get another satellite is worth spending money to avoid.

We thought Dish would throw us a few hd bones back in the fall when Direct was launching the slew of hd channels. Never happened. I am not sure that Charlie sees Direct as competition like we do.

 

[Juan]

We thought Dish would throw us a few hd bones back in the fall when Direct was launching the slew of hd channels. Never happened. I am not sure that Charlie sees Direct as competition like we do.

H_E_L_L_O E* launched about 10 HD channels last year

 

[tigerfan33]

H_E_L_L_O E* launched about 10 HD channels last year

H-E-L-L-O. How many were launched after October 1.??

I do believe that is the 4th q. when Direct kicked ass.

 

[Smith P.]

Would you PLEASE continue discuss Dish business in other dedicated thread ?!

The topic about what ? Look at that.

 

[Poke]

Any updates on what the Russians or whoever think they can do to save the Sat??

 

[drdroo]

There have been some suggestions in articles, but no official word from ILS, SES Americom or anyone as far as I can see.

 

[Smith P.]

Forget about Russians - the sat is alone now ( disconnected long time ago after failure of second burn ).
SES, Lockheed are the drivers.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You will see no official answer until they are 101% sure of what they are saying.

I talked to a friend from Dish and was told they they were in the dark about it as much as we are.

I have been unable to this point to get an official statement from Echostar on this matter.

 

[John Kotches]

You will see no official answer until they are 101% sure of what they are saying.

I talked to a friend from Dish and was told they they were in the dark about it as much as we are.

I have been unable to this point to get an official statement from Echostar on this matter.

You can't get an official statement as the owner of the satellite hasn't figured out what to do yet. Until then Dish won't have any idea.

Cheers,

 

[Hemi 6.1]

This is a Major Problem and setback!

 

[rglore]

I suspect Dish will say something tomorrow for the shareholders, else the stock might really tank when the markets open. Glad I'm not currently holding any.

 

[Slamminc11]

This is a Major Problem and setback!

If Dish built and owned the satellite then I would agree, but...

 

[JamesJ]

I think alot people are forgetting this isnt Dish's sat! it was/is part of their plan but it wasnt their plan (meaning they still have other parts to put together)

 

[photoman76]

Russian rocket fails to take US satellite into planned orbit

 

[Slamminc11]

Russian rocket fails to take US satellite into planned orbit

umm, yeah we heard.