Vladimir Aleksandrovich Popovkin, former head of the Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, passed away on Wednesday from an undisclosed illness at the age of 57, a Roscosmos press release said.
Popovkin, who presided over the space program for over two years after his appointment in 2011, was replaced by Oleg Ostapenko in October 2013. He was born in Dushanbe in 1957 to a military family, and graduated from the elite Leningrad military engineering institute, walking into a job at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the launch site for most of Russia's spacecraft. There, he rose through the ranks from a lowly engineer to commander of the same launch pad that Yury Gagarin himself launched from in 1961. Read More...
To receive FIRST UP Satcom, a weekly SpaceNews newsletter for satellite and telecom professionals, sign up here.
TOP STORIES
Globalstar is borrowing $199 million through a loan arranged by its controlling shareholder Thermo and fleet operator EchoStar. Globalstar said it will use the funds to pay off a $66 million loan arranged in June, and to make pre-payments towards a separate $152 million loan. Globalstar has rights to global S-band satellite spectrum, which it is seeking to use for terrestrial connectivity. Read More...
The private schools for New York City’s moneyed elite are set to get even more exclusive.
The price tag for an education at top-tier institutions will reach new highs for the upcoming academic year, with tuition increases of as much as 5% and at least two schools eclipsing the $60,000-a-year mark, according to parents and notices seen by Bloomberg. ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o7jOqKSbnaKce6S7zGilnq%2BjZK6zwMico56rX2d9c36MaWlmaWdktbDDjKasnKBdmbxuuticZKmqmauutbGMrJqhp5%2BhwG6vzqyrZqiinrCmv4ytpqllZmW4bq2Mspyaql2WwG6ywKagpaGVqHqzsdOuqac%3D