Sirius Communications Reaches Into Space on NASA’s Shuttle And the International Space Station

With CDMA customers in
25 countries here on Earth, Sirius Communications NV announced today that its
technology will move into space as part of the NASA space shuttle and
International Space Station wireless video system.
Sirius provided flight
hardware, consulting services, development support and software for the
project.
Anticipated first flight is for mission build 4A scheduled in late
2000.

Video data from a helmet-mounted camera is provided to crewmembers inside
the Space Shuttle Orbiter.
The extra vehicular camera video system has three
cameras integrated into the astronauts’ helmet.
These are controlled by a
command signal transmitted from the International Space Station or the
Orbiter.

The camera technology is provided by Broadcast Sports Technology, Inc.,
utilizing technology from the Racecam used in NASCAR and IRL racing.
Broadcast Sports is developing the RF camera system including the payload bay
s-band antenna arrays, transceivers, and the ERCA RF camera system.

“The power flux density of the Sirius’ CDMA solution is undetectable on
the earth and by Low Earth Orbit satellites also active in the same frequency
bands,” said Michael Katzmann, president of Broadcast Sports.
“The close to
ideal performance of the Sirius Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum approach
allows a reliable command link to the Extravehicular Mobility Unit Radio
Frequency Camera Assemblies.”

Sirius Communications provides Broadcast Sports Technology with flight
hardware, consulting services, development support and software.
Sirius
Communications has a long track record of delivering technology for the
European Space Agency ESTEC.

“By electing the CDMA modulation scheme from Sirius Communications,
Broadcast Sports ensured the greatest compatibility with existing services in
the UHF band that the command link operates,” said Kristoffel Mulier, Sirius’
director of sales and marketing.
“The highly integrated and low-power CDMA
chip secures the communication link creating a seamless system.”

About Sirius Communications

Founded in 1996, Sirius Communications is a fabless semiconductor company
that spun out of IMEC, Europe’s largest independent microelectronics research
institute.
The company develops spread spectrum application specific
integrated circuits (ASICs) for the wireless, wireline and satellite
communications markets.
Sirius also licenses its CDMAx(TM) wideband
transceiver intellectual property (IP) to foundries and telecommunications
companies.
Sirius’ engineering team has extensive experience with
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology and holds several patents.
The Company’s CDMA chips implement Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum techniques
and can function in a wide variety of CDMA telecommunication systems.
Sirius
Communications NV is headquartered near Brussels, Belgium, with sales offices
located throughout the world.
Sirius Communications was a founding member of
the UMTS Intellectual Property Association and is a member of the Virtual
Socket Interface Alliance (VSIA).
More information on Sirius Communications
is available at http://www.siriuscomm.com .