TOKYO Japan’s second National endorsement Space of Development its plans to join Agency commercial has received spacea faring nations by successfully launching its redesigned H-IIA medium-weight launch vehicle on Feb. 4 from NASDA’s Tanegashima Launch Center about 620 mi. south of here.

Washington and Paris Teledesic LLC, which once planned to gird the Earth with a constellation of 840 broadband satellites in lowEarth orbit (LEO) to deliver “Internet In The Sky” service worldwide, has scaled back its ambitions to a 30satellite medium-Earth orbit (MEO) arrangement initially targeted at the most promising market regions.

New York Standard & Poor’s last week lowered its ratings on Boeing Co. and Boeing Capital Corp., reflecting the likelihood of “significantly weaker” commercial aerospace business for the next few years. Tempering the downgrade was S&P’s acknowledgment that the difficult business climate for selling new jetliners should be offset by aggressive cost cutting by Boeing and healthy growth prospects in other lines of business.