Hughes satellite use booms as TV brings war into our homes.

Hughes satellite use booms as TV brings war into our homes

Among the beneficiaries of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf is Hughes Communications Inc. in El Segundo, a division of Hughes Aircraft Co. that operates a network of satellites used by several television networks.

Since the start of hostilities, billings for the use of the satellites have gone up more than 50 percent, with unprecedented use on Jan. 17, the first full day of the war.

Thomas Bracken, a spokesman for Hughes Communications, said on Jan. 17 the company's satellites transmitted nearly 600 hours of war-related news coverage to the United States and Japan.

January, said Bracken, was the busiest month of satellite traffic in the company's 11-year history, with 6,025 "uplinks," or transmission connections between the Earth and one of the satellites.

Bracken did not have an exact figure on the company's revenues for the period but noted that three major U.S. networks and one from Japan are paying $400 an hour to use the satellites to transmit their pictures from the Persian Gulf region to viewers back home.

Cable News Network is using the satellites 24 hours a day and has a month-to-month contract for around-the-clock transmissions.

ABC and CBS, as well as Japanese network NHK, are each reserving a few hours a day for using the satellites to transmit from the gulf region, said Bracken.

He said ABC, CBS and NHK have week-to-week contracts with Hughes.

"It's unfortunate but in our case, the war has been very good for our business," said Bracken. "Whenever there is a major event, our business improves, like during the airplane crash recently at LAX when the satellites

were being used by the networks to transmit pictures from that."

The television pictures from the war are beamed to New York via an Intelsat satellite and then from New York through Hughes, Galaxy. Westar or SBS satellites to other points either domestically or overseas.

Galaxy, Westar and SBS satellites are produced by the Hughes Aircraft Space & Communications Group in El Segundo. Intelsat was produced by an international consortium of companies and is used by countries around the world.

Hughes Communications, which employs about 350, operates, maintains and monitors the satellites once they are in stationary orbit 22,000 miles above Earth. The satellites have been launched in South America by a French company or at Cape Canaveral, Fla., by booster rockets made by General Dynamics Corp.

The Hughes division operates a total of 13 communications satellites, including four that are used by the U.S. Navy.

PHOTO : Living room war: Hughes Communications' Network Operations Control Center in El Segundo