Galaxy 1

Galaxy 1 was the first in a line of Galaxy communications satellites launched by Hughes Communications in 1983.

It helped fill a hole in satellite broadcasting bandwidth created by the loss of RCA's Satcom 3 in 1979. Unlike satellite owners RCA and Western Union, Hughes did not lease time on their transponders in the fashion of a common carrier, but instead sold transponders outright to content providers. This created a stable lineup of content attractive enough for cable providers to dedicate earth station receivers to it full-time.

Among the services on Galaxy 1 by mid-1984: HBO, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, Showtime, The Disney Channel, TBS, CNN, ESPN, and The Nashville Network.

Retirement of Galaxy 1

In 1992, Galaxy 1 was replaced by Galaxy 5 as the predominant cable television signal carrier, when a majority of satellite television services were relocated onto that satellite. It was originally slated for retirement in 1992 and replacement by Galaxy 1R, but the replacement was lost during launch on August 22, 1992, due to a failure of the booster rocket's second stage Centaur engine; it was eventually replaced in 1994 by Galaxy 1RR.

Phil Fearon

Phil Fearon (born 30 July 1956) is an English record producer. He was the lead singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist for the 1980s band Galaxy.

Career

Fearon was born in Jamaica in 1956, but moved to London with his parents at the age of five. After running a reggae sound system, he joined Hott Wax (which evolved into Brit funk pioneers Hi-Tension after he left) and in the late 1970s was a mainstay of hit group Kandidate which scored a number 11 chart hit in 1979 with "I Don't Wanna Lose You". He set up a studio in his north London house and initially recorded with the group Proton on Champagne Records. Fearon’s first recording as Galaxy (with assistance from singers Julie and Dorothy) was "Head Over Heels" on Ensign Records in 1982, which became a club hit. The first success came with the Top 5 hit "Dancing Tight" in 1983 and over the next 15 months they chalked up a further four UK Top 40 singles including the Top 10s "What Do I Do" and "Everybody’s Laughing". Their radio-friendly pop/soul debut album, Phil Fearon & Galaxy also made the Top 10 in 1984. After a quiet period, Fearon returned to the Top 10 for the last time with a revival of Tony Etoria’s "I Can Prove It" in 1986 (also a minor US R&B hit). He continued to run a production company from his home making commercial dance records.

Galaxy (spacecraft)

Galaxy (previously Guardian) is a canceled prototype space habitat designed by the American firm Bigelow Aerospace, and was intended to be the third spacecraft launched by the company in their efforts to create a commercial space station. Like other modules made by Bigelow Aerospace, Galaxy is based on the inflatable TransHab design by NASA, and was to be used for advanced systems testing before the company launched human-rated vehicles.

Spacecraft history

Galaxy started life as twin spacecraft named Guardian which would have acted as 45% scale intermediates between the one-third size Genesis I & Genesis II pathfinders and the full size BA 330 man-rated module. Sometime after 2004, the two Guardian flights were split into the Galaxy module and larger Sundancer module, each testing progressively advanced systems. This Galaxy had twice the interior volume of the Genesis craft: 23.0 cubic meters (812.2 cu ft). In 2007, the parameters for Galaxy were again modified, with final specifications being for a spacecraft 4.0 meters (13.1 ft) in length, 3.3 meters (10.8 ft) in diameter and with 16.7 cubic meters (589.8 cu ft) of interior volume—45% greater than the Genesis modules. It was intended for launch in late 2008.

Galaxy (Jeff Lorber Fusion album)

Galaxy is the seventh studio album by The Jeff Lorber Fusion it was released in January.

Track listing

References