Satellite

Euthanizing an old and crippled satellite isn't as simple as flipping a switch or pulling a plug. In fact, scientists and engineers at the Johns Hopkins University worked unexpectely late into the afternoon yesterday, trying to drain the stubborn batteries of NASA's orbiting FUSE observatory and putting to rest an eight-year mission that tested their ingenuity and patience to the very end. For one astronomer, it was a particularly melancholy moment....

Oct. 4 1957 The Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.

Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union sent thrills and shivers around the world with a brief announcement: Its rocketeers had launched a tiny, beeping artificial satellite named Sputnik into orbit. With it, they launched a revolution. "I still have a mental picture of the newspaper inside the vending machine on Euclid Avenue. The news was absolutely electrifying," said Robert Williams, then a schoolboy in Ontario, Calif.

Ilive way out in the country and it's beautiful, but I am literally the last phone on the local line. My download speeds are very slow. And obviously there is no cable or satellite access. What can I do other than move back to the city? Are there different speeds from the Internet service providers, or am I stuck napping while waiting on a download? - E. DeVane You're not out of satellite range. While I am not a great fan of Internet by satellite, it's sure better than your painfully slow dial-up speed.

With all these new gadgets for listening to music -- from MP3s to state-of-the-art cell phones and laptops, not to mention satellite radio -- it's a wonder anyone is listening to good old-fashioned terrestrial radio. One theory says that so many listeners are spending money on newfangled technology that the ones left tuning in to terrestrial radio are doing so only because they can't afford the new toys. "Because of satellite radio, more affluent people are going to use that service, so we have a smaller piece of the pie to slice up with the people remaining, who are not so affluent," said Bob Pettit, general manager of WCBM, the Baltimore talk-radio station at 680 AM. "The younger people are going to the new technologies.

Alliant Techsystems Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of solid-fuel rocket motors, including those that propel the space shuttle into orbit, is expanding its satellite business with the acquisition of Beltsville-based Swales Aerospace. The purchase is a significant one for Alliant, which is better known by its ticker symbol, ATK. Swales has contracts to build satellite delivery systems for the military and intelligence agencies, and together they would be able to offer a broad spectrum of products, analysts said.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry plans to say at a Senate hearing today that the system that should allow fans easy access to televised baseball games from multiple markets "is not working." In a statement to be delivered to the Senate Commerce Committee, the Massachusetts Democrat expressed reservations about a $700 million deal that could make Major League Baseball's Extra Innings package - which allows fans to watch out-of-market games - the exclusive property of the DirecTV satellite service.

Radio's space race may be over. The nation's two satellite pay-radio services - market leader XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and rival Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. - said yesterday that they intend to join forces, stemming a flood of red ink in a $4.57 billion stock deal that will result in a single service with 14 million subscribers. But the merger must clear several significant regulatory hurdles. That could prove as difficult as hitching Howard Stern with Oprah Winfrey. (Stern is a big draw at Sirius, and Winfrey has a channel exclusively on XM.)

Andre Mueller is a virtual explorer of virgin territory. One morning, the 25-year-old German physics student noticed a wispy line off the coast of Iceland in the patchwork of satellite imagery that makes up Google Earth. He zoomed in. It was smoke. At the end of the smoke trail, he discovered three boats. He slapped a "placemark," the program's version of an explorer's flag, on the location and reported his findings on Google Earth Community bulletin board. "What are these three ships doing there?"

BEIJING -- The Chinese government publicly confirmed yesterday that it had conducted a successful test of a new anti-satellite weapon but said it had no intention of participating in a "space race." The confirmation was made at a regular Foreign Ministry news briefing, 12 days after China used a medium-range ballistic missile to destroy one of its own weather satellites 535 miles above Earth. Several countries, including the United States, Japan, Britain and Australia, pressed Beijing to explain the test, apparently the first successful destruction of a satellite in orbit in more than 20 years.