"Yes, Teledesic is our target," Takenori Yanase, Vice President of NEC's space systems division told Japan Space Net. Yanase said the bus would be available for the commercial market in late 1999, "not only for Teledesic, but for Remote Sensing customers in Taiwan, Australia, Argentina, Thailand and Malaysia. We are approaching agencies in all these countries," he said.

The announcement comes on top of a verbal commitment last October by Teledesic and prime contractor Boeing Corp. of Seattle for NEC to supply inter-satellite optical communications equipment for the Teledesic constellation.

NEC�s optical communications technology is based on systems being developed for the National Space Development Agency of Japan's (NASDA's) Optical Inter-satellite Communications Test Satellite (OICETS), a 550 metric ton bus due to start a 1 year inter-orbit communications mission with the European Space Agency's ARTEMIS satellite in 2000.

OICETS' engineering model is undergoing components testing and approaching the critical design review, said NASDA spokesman Takashi Endo.

Teledesic's inter-satellite systems were "substantially the same," as those used by OICETS, said Tomoko Obuchi, assistant general manager of NEC's space systems division, except that they will need more durability testing for the constellation's intended 10 year lifespan. "The most important thing is that we harden them against radiation," he said.

NEC officially unveiled the bus at the 17th International Communications Satellite Systems Conference held by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Yokohama, outside Tokyo, February 23-27.

The three-axis 500 Kg and 1000Kg buses are based on a hybrid design of the 800 kg HALCA bus launched last February for ISAS, and the 500 Kg Mission Demonstration Satellite small standard bus NEC is developing for NASDA, explained Junichi Aoyama, senior manager of NEC's advanced satellite business center.

Attitude control subsystems, basic box structure and communications systems will come from OICETS. Communications and power systems will come from the Mission Demonstration Satellite design, he said Feb. 27.

HALCA is conducting an international radio astronomy search for super-massive black holes for Japan�s Institute of Space and Astronomical Science. Two further Mission Demonstration Satellite launches are due in 2000 and 2001.

NEC was expecting business from Teledesic as the ambitious enterprise was still considering how many satellites it would need, Obuchi said.

"We'll know around April," he said, as Teledesic's original Federal Communications Commission filing for 844 satellites still stood. Currently a tentative contract for 288 satellites plus spares and plus spares has been placed with Boeing, but any increase in procurement would give NEC the chance to tender a bid, Obuchi added.

While NEC could not name nominal prices, Yanase confirmed that his team was committed to reaching "international norms."

"We have all the capabilities we need in terms of technical competence, but the problems are delivery times and pricing. We'll have to match Boeing's [price], and that's a big challenge." he said.

Aoyama estimated the time from order to delivery as 24 months. "It's very long, but if you look at Hughes or Lockheed Martin, they have just monochrome products. Our target is flexibility, to target a variety of applications," he said.

While NEC might be able to produce optical components without a huge investment, it lacks the facilities to mass-produce buses and can build a maximum of six a year, Kiyoshi Murata, General Manager of NEC's space systems division told Japan Space Net in 1997.

NEC had hoped to leverage a consortium project funded partly by the Science and Technology Agency that was to have built a new vacuum chamber near NEC's Yokohama, however government budget cuts have delayed the project indefinitely.

However, this set back has not dented NEC's ambitions, said Yanase. "If necessary, we will build the facilities for [making and testing more satellites] with our own money," he said. "If we can cover the depreciation on such a big investment, we'll go. It all depends on how the business plan works out."

Yanase also said that the small standard bus was part one of a twin-track strategy, part two of which was to develop large geostationary communications satellites, "before 2005."

NEC lacks experience with large geostationary satellites compared to Mitsubishi and is anxious to catch up despite setbacks in this area as well.

The recent failure of the H2�s second-stage dashed NEC�s hopes of space testing a large geo satellite when the rocket failed to place the Communications Engineering Test Satellite into geo-transfer orbit. But this was unimportant, said Yanase, as NEC would be either integrating or getting prime contractor status for future communications satellites from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

NEC has received study contracts for two large bus geo-stationary Ka-band experimental satellites, the Gigabit satellite in 2004 and a possible three-satellite Global Multi Media Satellite System in, or after, 2004.