Boeing says LightSquared satellite glitch fixed

Boeing said it fixed the antenna glitch in LightSquared’s satellite, which was shot into space Nov. 14. The company now is continuing a series of checks over the next few months before handing the SkyTerra 1 satellite and its space-based network over to LightSquared.
“We assembled a core team of experts, and today’s success is one that we share with Harris Corporation, the supplier of the antenna, and with our customer, LightSquared. Although the occasional delay in a full deployment sometimes occurs on a satellite, it is not a situation we face very often. Today’s success is due to the talented men and women at Boeing and their unparalleled expertise in operating satellites and in creatively and successfully resolving the issue,” Craig Cooning, VP and GM of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, said in a prepared statement.
“We congratulate the Boeing, Harris and LightSquared teams who have worked diligently over the past week to successfully deploy the SkyTerra 1 L-band reflector. We look forward to Boeing’s completion of in-orbit testing of the SkyTerra 1 satellite and handing over this Space Based Network to us in early 2011. LightSquared is proceeding on schedule with its roll-out of the nation’s first integrated wireless broadband and satellite network,” Martin Harriman, Executive VP of Ecosystem Development and Satellite Business at LightSquared, said in a prepared statement.
LightSquared has ambitious plans to build out a hybrid LTE/satellite network to bring mobile broadband to customers nationwide as a wholesale carrier. LightSquared’s plans for a ground-based cellular network will include approximately 40,000 base stations.