Skynet 5D To Launch By End Of Year

British military demand for Skynet satellite bandwidth is expected to decline with troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting Paradigm Services, a division of EADS-Astrium, to expand its commercial offering to include civil service monitoring and data collection for government and private-sector customers. Paradigm's Skynet 5 contract with the U.K. Ministry of Defense, valued at £3.6 billion ($5.6 billion) through 2022, provides military-hardened, precise satellite communications worldwide. The contract, signed in October 2003, gives Paradigm ownership of the satellites and the rights to sell X-band satellite capacity to other governments and to NATO, once British military demand is met ...