NASA Honors Hughes Team.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 1998--Hughes Space and Communications Co. has been notified by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., that 30 of its employees were recognized in the 1998 NASA Group Achievement Award.

This year's award acknowledged all members of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) team for their contributions to the development and implementation of TRMM. The TRMM spacecraft will complete its first year in orbit on the day after Thanksgiving.

Hughes Space and Communications Co. provided a TRMM microwave imager (TMI), one of several instruments on board the TRMM spacecraft. Data provided by TMI provides space and weather agencies valuable insight into meteorological phenomena and their influence over unusual ocean patterns, such as "El Nino."

Additionally, TMI is capable of supplying information useful for tropical storm tracking, cloud and soil moisture levels, land and sea surface temperatures, wave height, and sea surface wind speeds.

"Today, more than ever, accurate weather forecast and prediction is crucial, because countless lives can be saved," said Michael J. Gianelli, vice president of Hughes Space and Communications Co.

"Hughes has been involved in environmental monitoring from space since the launch of our first weather instrument in 1967. We are proud of the role Hughes has played in obtaining this vital information, and we thank NASA for honoring our work with TRMM."

TMI measures tropical rainfall characteristics from space by detecting microwave energy in the form of brightness temperatures from Earth's surface and atmosphere.

TMI was designed to work in conjunction with a precipitation radar built by the Japanese space agency, NASDA, as well as visible and infrared sensors, and a lightning imaging sensor. The data supplied by the system provides insight into tropical storm formations and their likely paths.

TMI was launched Nov. 27, 1997. The spacecraft operates from a circular low inclination (35 degrees) orbit approximately 220 miles above Earth. From this position, TMI transmits rainfall data from the tropical regions of the world bordering the equator.

Backed by more than two decades of experience, TMI is the second in Hughes' line of microwave imagers. The first, the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager, SSM/I, was designed for the U.S. Air Force for use on its Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, DMSP. The first SSM/I was launched in June 1987, and today five SSM/I instruments are in operation, with a total of more than 23 years of in-orbit experience.

Hughes is also designing a next-generation microwave imager, a Conical Scanning Microwave Imager/Sounder, CMIS, which, through the addition of a sounder, is capable of taking a vertical picture through the atmosphere, thereby reading temperature and humidity profiles at various atmospheric levels.

Hughes Space and Communications Co., an ISO 9001 company, is the world's leading manufacturer of geostationary commercial communications satellites, and is also a major supplier of spacecraft and equipment to the United States government, and a builder of weather satellites for the United States and Japan.

Hughes' current government programs include the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), and the Ultra High Frequency Follow-On (UHF F/O) satellites, all based on Hughes' commercial HS 601 satellite design.

The earnings of Hughes Electronics are used to calculate the earnings per share attributable to GMH (NYSE symbol) common stock.

For latest TRMM images, visit NASA's Web site at http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/