title: SES S.A.

text: SES was formed on the initiative and support of the Luxembourg Government in 1985 as "Société Européenne des Satellites" (SES). The Luxembourg State remains a major shareholder. In 1988, as Europe's first private satellite operator, SES launched its first satellite, Astra 1A, to the 19.2° East orbital position. Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV, along with German broadcasters Pro7, Sat.1, and RTL were among Astra's first major customers.


title: SES S.A.

text: By 1990, Astra was broadcasting to 14 million cable and DTH (Direct to Home) viewers. SES was the pioneer of 'co-location' by which several satellites share the same orbital position to provide mutual backup and increase the number of channels available to a fixed receiving dish, creating what became known as a 'satellite neighbourhood'. Astra's prime slot, 19.2° East, saw as many as eight satellites sharing the position simultaneously and helped to build up Astra's reputation for reliability.


title: SES S.A.

text: Rapid growth in Germany, in what would become Astra's largest European market, was helped by the German government's decision to liberalize the installation of dishes in 1991. In this time SES became the leading satellite system providing direct-to-home transmission, and became the world's largest satellite platform for TV distribution.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 1996, after the launch of Astra 1E, SES pioneered digital satellite transmission with the French Canal+. In 1998, SES launched Astra 2A for the UK market, transmitting at the new orbital position 28.2° East, and eventually moving all of its United Kingdom and Ireland transmission capacity to this orbital slot. In the same year, SES went public on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange trading as SESG (in 2005 SES would also list on the Paris Euronext).


title: SES S.A.

text: From 1999, SES began a period of ambitious global expansion beyond its European home market. Geographic expansion went hand-in-hand with the diversification of SES' services beyond just TV broadcasting, to cover telecommunication services for businesses, telecommunications companies and government customers, as well as broadband access and technical consultancy services.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 1999, SES acquired a 34.13% stake in Hong Kong-based satellite operator AsiaSat and took a foothold in Asia and the Pacific region. A year later, SES acquired 50% of Scandinavian satellite broadcaster Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB), later renamed SES Sirius, which strengthened SES' coverage in northern and eastern Europe. The same year, SES also took a participation of 19.99% in Brazilian satellite operator Star One, gaining a first presence in Latin America.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 2001, SES bought 28.75% of Argentina's Nahuelsat and acquired GE Americom, giving it a solid presence in the important North American market. This resulted in the formation of SES Global, a corporate entity with two operating companies, SES Astra and SES Americom. Altogether, SES operated a fleet of 41 geostationary satellites, the largest in the world in 2001.


title: SES S.A.

text: Further acquisitions followed. In 2003, SES' stake in NSAB was increased to 75% and in 2005 SES acquired a participation in Canadian satellite operator Ciel and in Mexico's Quetzsat, as well as the divestment from Nahuelsat.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES acquired services provider, Digital Playout Centre GmbH (later Astra Platform Services, then SES Platform Services, then MX1, now merged into SES) in 2005. and in 2006 SES also acquired ND SatCom, a German provider of government services, developing a services portfolio beyond just bandwidth provision.


title: SES S.A.

text: Also in 2006, SES acquired New Skies Satellites, later renamed SES New Skies, adding six satellites to the SES fleet and strengthening coverage in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 2007, SES divested from its holdings in AsiaSat and Star One in a complex transaction with General Electric which itself divested from SES.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 2008, SES increased its stake in NSAB to 90%. and merged its two international operating units, SES Americom and SES New Skies into a new segment which was branded SES World Skies in September 2009.


title: SES S.A.

text: In 2009, SES and Middle East satellite operator Yahsat announced the formation of a joint venture, YahLive, to commercialise 23 Ku-band transponders on Yahsat 1A, serving the Middle East, North Africa and Western Asia with direct-to-home TV services. Also in 2009, SES announced its investment in O3b Networks a project to build a medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation to deliver high-speed, low-latency, fibre-like internet broadband trunking to the world's emerging regions ("the Other 3 billion").


title: SES S.A.

text: In 2010, SES grew its stake in SES Sirius to 100% and closed the acquisition of the in-orbit satellite Protostar-2/Indostar-2, renaming it SES-7 and integrating it into its fleet covering India and Southeast Asia.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May and September 2011, SES restructured and rebranded the company to streamline the organisation's activities under a single management team and one main brand (SES), incorporating the company's two previous operating entities, SES Astra and SES World Skies.


title: SES S.A.

text: In August 2011, the Astra 1N satellite was launched to the 28.2° East orbital position, and in September 2011, the QuetzSat 1 satellite was launched to 77.0° West


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2012, SES-4 was successfully launched to become SES' 50th satellite and the largest, heaviest and most powerful in the fleet. In July 2012, SES-5, the 51st SES Satellite was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan to 5.0° East with 36 Ku-band transponders to provide coverage over Sub-Saharan Africa and the Nordic and the Baltic regions in Europe, and 28 C-band transponders for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2012, Astra 2F was successfully launched from Kourou in French Guiana, the first of three "next generation" satellites at the second Astra orbital position at 28.2° East. The satellite has Ku-band coverage of all Europe, the British Isles and sub-Saharan Africa for DTH television, and Ka-band coverage of Central Europe for the SES Broadband satellite internet service.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES-6 was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 3 June 2013 to 40.5° East, to replace NSS-806 and provide continuity of service and expansion capacity in C-band for Latin America and the Caribbean. The satellite has 43 C-band and 48 Ku-band transponders with comprehensive coverage of North America, Latin America, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean.


title: SES S.A.

text: Astra 2E was launched to the Astra 28.2° East position from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on 30 September 2013 to provide free-to-air and encrypted DTH digital TV and satellite broadband services for Europe and the Middle East. The successful launch followed a 10-week delay due to the postponement of all launches by launch services provider ILS after a catastrophic failure of the rocket in a previous launch.


title: SES S.A.

text: In December 2013, SES-8 was launched from Cape Canaveral using a SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1, the first geostationary satellite to be launched with a SpaceX rocket.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2014, Astra 5B was launched as SES' 56th satellite to the Astra 31.5° East position from Kourou in French Guiana to provide transponder capacity and extend geographical reach over Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for DTH, direct-to-cable and contribution feeds to digital terrestrial television networks.


title: SES S.A.

text: In April 2014, Romain Bausch stepped down as president and CEO of SES, a position he had held since 1995 overseeing the growth of the company from a European Direct-to-Home satellite system with four satellites into a global satellite industry leader operating a fleet of more than 50 satellites. Bausch continues to serve SES as a non-executive Director, and is elected to take the role of Chairman at the start of 2015. He was succeeded as CEO by Karim Michel Sabbagh.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2014 SES announced that the engineering services division, SES TechCom had joined with the Luxembourg Government and the Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Action, and five Non-governmental organisations (NGO) – Archemed, Fondation Follereau, Friendship, German Doctors and Médecins Sans Frontières to form Satmed, an eHealth platform to improve public health in emerging and developing countries, especially in remote areas with poor connectivity.


title: SES S.A.

text: In July 2014, SES announced that nearly half of the SES satellite fleet is controlled from the new satellite operations center (SOC) opened at its sales and engineering offices in Princeton, New Jersey. 23 satellites are controlled from Princeton with the remainder operated from SES's global headquarters in Luxembourg.


title: SES S.A.

text: Astra 2G, the final "next generation" satellite for the 28.2° East orbital position was launched from the Baikonur in December 2014 to deliver broadcast, VSAT and broadband services to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and to connect West Africa to Europe via Ka-band.


title: SES S.A.

text: On 13 January 2015, SES announced that it plans to procure and launch a satellite in partnership with the Luxembourg Government, to be called GovSat-1. Jointly owned, the satellite is launched in 2017 to an orbital position above Europe and provide governmental and military communications in the X-band and Ka-band with coverage of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2016, it was announced that, subject to regulatory approvals, subsidiary, SES Platform Services would purchase RR Media, a global digital media services provider to the broadcast and media industries, based in Israel. In July 2016, SES announced that the acquisition was complete and that the merged company would be known as MX1.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2016, the SES-9 satellite was successfully launched by a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Cape Canaveral after four previous attempts on 24 February, 25 February, 28 February, and 1 March 2016 - all aborted due to weather and launcher problems. The satellite used electric propulsion to reach geostationary orbit and will be positioned at 108.2° East to provide 81 Ku-band transponder equivalents for pay-TV, data and mobility across Northeast Asia and South Asia, and Indonesia.


title: SES S.A.

text: In April 2016, SES announced that (subject to regulatory approvals which are expected to be completed by the end of 2016) it will pay US$20 million to increase its fully diluted ownership of O3b Networks from 49.1% to 50.5%, taking a controlling share in the company. In May 2016, SES said it would raise another US$710 million to purchase 100% of O3b Networks, exercising a call option with O3b minority shareholders and eliminating the possibility of an O3b stock offering, and then subsequently announced the completion of the capital raising and completion of the acquisition.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2016, Modern Times Group, owner of the Viasat DTH platform announced that the Viasat Ultra HD channel would launch in the autumn on the SES-5 satellite at 5.0° East, as the first UHD channel for the Nordic region and the first UHD Sports channel in the World. The channel will feature selected live sport events especially produced in Ultra HD and Viasat will also be launching an Ultra HD set-top box from Samsung and a TV-module to enable existing UHD TVs to display the channel. SES claimed the launch of Viasat Ultra HD will bring the number of UHD channels (including test channels and regional versions) carried on SES satellites to 24, or 46% of all UHD channels broadcast via satellite worldwide.


title: SES S.A.

text: On 30 March 2017, the SES-10 satellite was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket using a refurbished first stage booster that had been previously used to launch a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA in April 2016 and then landed and recovered. This is the first time that a rocket booster has been reused in this way. Both the Falcon 9 first stage and the payload fairing were successfully recovered after the SES-10 launch for subsequent reuse. SES-10 is positioned at 67.0° West to serve Latin America.


title: SES S.A.

text: In April 2017, the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs extended the contract with SES to maintain, support, and continue to develop the Satmed eHealth platform to improve public health in remote areas of developing countries until 2020, extending the provision of satellite connectivity over Africa, the Philippines and Bangladesh.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2017, SES announced the successful integration with the SES-14 satellite of the NASA Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) scientific hosted payload built by the University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The first scientific payload carried by an SES satellite, GOLD was integrated with SES-14 at Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France ahead of its launch to 47.5° West in late 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.


title: SES S.A.

text: In June 2017, SES announced the start of a 30-month project by the Satellite and Terrestrial Network for 5G (SaT5G) consortium for the seamless, and economically viable, integration of satellite (such as SES' geostationary orbit and medium Earth orbit high throughput satellites) into future 5G networks, improving the ubiquity, resilience and efficiency of 5G services, and opening new markets in media distribution, transport and underserved areas. The consortium is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme and comprises 16 members, including SES and Airbus Defence and Space, Avanti Communications, British Telecom, Broadpeak, Gilat Satellite Networks, OneAccess, Thales Alenia Space, TNO, University of Surrey, and Zodiac Inflight Innovation.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2017, SES announced the next generation of O3b satellites and service. Named O3b mPOWER, the new constellation of (initially) seven MEO satellites built by Boeing Satellite Systems will deliver 10 terabits of capacity globally through 30,000 spot beams for broadband internet services. O3b mPOWER is expected to launch in 2021.


title: SES S.A.

text: On 11 October 2017, a flight-proven (refurbished) SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the SES-11 satellite to the geostationary orbital position of 105.0° West. The launch was originally set for late 2016 but suffered a year-long delay because of SpaceX's September 2016 Falcon 9 explosion. SES-11 was built by Airbus Defence and Space and is a dual mission satellite, with 24 Ku-band transponders marketed by EchoStar as EchoStar 105 to replace capacity on SES' AMC-15 satellite, and 24 C-band transponders marketed by SES as SES-11 for replacement capacity for AMC-18 delivering video, especially HD and UHD, to the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. Following positioning at 105.0° West and in-orbit testing, SES-11 was declared fully operational on 29 November 2017.


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2018, SES teamed up with Intelsat (later joined by Eutelsat in July 2018) for a proposal to United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to form a consortium of satellite service providers to protect the quality and reliability of existing video and audio services to United States households downlinking in the 3700-4200 MHz C-band spectrum while enabling wireless operators to access 100 MHz of C-band spectrum for deployment of next generation 5G services in the United States.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2018, Saint Martin-based satellite TV provider KiwiSAT launched a new DTH platform to deliver about 130 channels (including 90 HD channels) of TV entertainment to consumers across the Caribbean using the SES-10 satellite at 67.0° West.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2018, SES broadcast an 8K television signal via its satellite system for the first time, as part of its Industry Days conference at the Luxembourg HQ. The 8K demonstration content, with a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels, a frame rate of 60 frames per second and 10-bit colour depth, was encoded in HEVC and transmitted at a rate of 80 Mbit/s via the Astra 3B satellite.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2018, in response to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of July 2018 from the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make the 3.7 to 4.2 GHz spectrum available for next-generation terrestrial fixed and mobile broadband services, SES, along with Intelsat, Eutelsat and Telesat - together providing the majority of C-band satellite services in the United States, including media distribution reaching 100 million United States households - established the C-Band Alliance (CBA). The consortium's proposal to the FCC is to act as a facilitator for the clearing and repurposing of a 200 MHz portion of C-band spectrum to accelerate the deployment of next generation 5G services while protecting incumbent users and their content distribution and data networks in the US from potential interference.


title: SES S.A.

text: In April 2019, four O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites were launched by Arianespace at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou, French Guiana to complete the constellation of 20 first generation satellites for the SES-owned network communications service provider.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2019, for the first time in Europe, 8K demonstration content was received via satellite without the need for a separate external receiver or decoder. At the 2019, SES Industry Days conference at Betzdorf, Luxembourg broadcast quality 8K content (with a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels at 50 frames/s) was encoded using a Spin Digital HEVC encoder (at a bit rate of 70 Mbit/s), uplinked to a single 33 MHz transponder on SES' Astra 28.2°E satellites and the downlink received and displayed on a Samsung 82in Q950RB production model TV.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2019, SES announced it had partnered with satellite payload and network management systems developer, Kythera Space Solutions to develop the ARC (Adaptive Resource Control) software to enable the dynamic control and optimisation of power, throughput, beams and frequency allocation on O3b mPOWER, SES-17 and other future high-throughput satellites and their networks, autonomously optimizing space and ground resources, on-the-fly, in accordance with customers' changing needs.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2019, SES became a Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute services partner to provide dedicated, private network connectivity from sea vessels, aircraft, and industrial or government sites anywhere in the world to the Azure cloud computing service, via both its geostationary and O3b medium Earth orbit satellites.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2019, SES announced a new Free-to-view DTH platform on Astra 1N at 19.2° East, encrypted using Verimatrix and carrying 30-40 channels from Russian-language OTT broadcaster Kartina TV for Russian-speaking diaspora across Europe with limited broadband connectivity.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2019, the media technical services provider MX1, a wholly owned subsidiary of SES, was merged into the SES Video division, dropping the MX1 brand and providing all broadcast and streamed content management, playout, distribution, and monetisation services under the SES name.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2020, SES released the results of the 2019 Satellite Monitor TV reception survey, which for the first time covered the Philippines. The survey found satellite TV is the second-most popular mode of TV reception in the Philippines with 17% of over 20.8 million TV households, behind terrestrial TV (66%), and that broadcasts from SES satellites reach 98% of Filipino satellite TV households.


title: SES S.A.

text: On 26 May 2020, SES elected to clear a portion of the C-Band spectrum in the United States, currently used for satellite TV services, in accordance with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order for the accelerated release of the 3.7-4.0 GHz portion of the band for 5G mobile broadband services. The SES Board of Directors approved US$1.6 billion for the procurement and launch of new satellites and other equipment and services for the migration of existing customers using the spectrum, which will be reimbursable through the FCC Clearinghouse. In June 2020, SES announced that four new C-band satellites had been ordered for this purpose from United States manufacturers, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. SES-18 and SES-19 will be GEOStar-3 satellites designed, assembled, and tested by Northrop Grumman, and SES-20 and SES-21 will be all-electric 702SP satellites from Boeing. Each satellite will have ten 36 MHz C-band transponders for delivery of digital TV and data services, and will be launched in 2022 to orbital slots at 103.0° West, 131.0° West and 135.0° West.


title: SES S.A.

text: In July 2020, SES launched a free-to-air information channel, Fight COVID-19, across several satellites to combat the global coronavirus pandemic. Available to millions of households across Africa, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, and providing underserved and rural communities with critical information about how to limit the spread of the virus, the content is provided by trusted organisations such as UNICEF, AFP and other international and regional organisations. The channel is broadcast from SES-5 (5.0° East) for Sub-Saharan Africa, Astra 4A (5.0° East) for Europe and Ukraine, Astra 2F (28.2° East) for West Africa, NSS-12 (57.0° East) for Ethiopia and adjacent countries, and SES-9 (108.2° East) for the Philippines.


title: SES S.A.

text: In August 2020, SES ordered two C-Band geostationary TV satellites from Thales Alenia Space. SES-22 and SES-23 are the last of six satellites SES needs to relocate existing C-band services from a portion of the C-band spectrum in accordance with the Federal Communications Commission's plans to repurpose the frequencies for 5G cellular networks.


title: SES S.A.

text: In August 2020 SES contracted Boeing to build four O3b mPOWER satellites in addition to the seven already under construction. SpaceX was contracted for an additional two launches, to make four launches for the whole O3b mPOWER constellation in 2021–2024.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2020, SES and Microsoft announced that SES was the medium Earth orbit connectivity partner for the Microsoft Azure Orbital ground station service that enables network operators to control their satellite operations and capacity from within the Azure cloud computing service. Under their agreement, SES and Microsoft will jointly invest in Azure Orbital ground stations for the MEO and Earth Observation segments, initially in the US, which will be installed and managed by SES. Also, satellite telemetry, tracking and control systems and data ground stations for the forthcoming O3b mPOWER satellites will be located with Microsoft's Azure edge sites to provide O3b mPOWER customers with ‘one-hop’ access to Azure cloud services.


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2021, SES agreed multi-year extension capacity contracts worth over €66 million with European public service broadcasters including ARD, BBC, BVN, France 24, TV5Monde and ZDF


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2021, the Luxembourg government further extended the contract with SES to provide the Satmed satellite eHealth platform to improve public health in remote areas of developing countries until 2024, with a €6.5 billion budget and plans for additional functionalities and deployments, and new partnerships with both more NGOs and supranational organisations to provide regional or cross-country support.


title: SES S.A.

text: In June 2021, SES joined the Amazon Web Services Direct Connect Delivery Partner programme, to provide customers access to AWS cloud-based applications and services from locations around the world with limited or no terrestrial communications, claiming to be the first satellite operator to do so. The service is provided via SES' geostationary satellites and the O3b medium Earth orbit satellites and also gives cloud providers a backup network if their infrastructure fails.


title: SES S.A.

text: In July 2021, SES entered into a capacity agreement with Indian public sector enterprise, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) for 9 transponders on the SES-8 satellite at 95°E, for distribution of satellite TV services across India and the thriving direct-to-home market.


title: SES S.A.

text: In August 2021, Microsoft became the first cloud computing provider customer for SES' O3b medium Earth orbit satellite system, with Microsoft buying managed satellite connectivity services from SES for the Microsoft Azure cloud service. Microsoft is initially using the existing first generation O3b satellites, before upgrading to the faster broadband speeds from the forthcoming O3b mPOWER satellites when they come into operation in 2022.


title: SES S.A.

text: In September 2021, the wholly-owned direct-to-consumer HD service in Germany, HD+ launched the HD+ ToGo app for Android and iOS smartphones and tablets giving existing subscribers access to the platform's 50 HD channels, along with catch-up services and online functions, on mobile devices for an additional fee.


title: SES S.A.

text: In October 2021, the SES-17 satellite was launched from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, SES's first geostationary Ka-band high-throughput satellite. SES-17 has an all-electric propulsion system and will reach its 67.1°W position in geostationary orbit in mid-2022, providing coverage for aeronautical, maritime, enterprise, and government markets across the Americas, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. It has a fully digital payload with nearly 200 reprogrammable spot beams that can be freely interconnected and changed in power and frequency in real-time to adapt to changing customer demands, and will operate in conjunction with SES's forthcoming O3b mPOWER medium Earth orbit satellites as a multi-orbit system.


title: SES S.A.

text: In November 2021, SES ordered two replacement satellites from Thales Alenia Space for launch in 2024 to SES's original orbital position at 19.2°E and service well into the 2040s. Like the satellites currently at the Astra 19.2°E slot (Astra 1KR, Astra 1L, Astra 1M, and Astra 1N - all launched 10–15 years ago, with the older two at the end of their planned life), Astra 1P will provide direct-to-home broadcast TV to Europe, in particular Germany, France and Spain. Astra 1Q is a reconfigurable software defined satellite with both wide beams for broadcast TV and high-throughput spot beams for video and data customers.


title: SES S.A.

text: In November 2021, SES announced that wholly owned subsidiary HD+, the premium HD and UHD satellite TV service for German users, would start a new service, HD+ IP, in December 2021 to stream HD+ channels to viewers' TV sets through a smart TV app without the need for a dish or set-top box, for a subscription of €6 per month.


title: SES S.A.

text: In December 2021, SES's wholly owned subsidiary SES Government Solutions announced that the US Army has conducted trials of commercial satellite constellations in multiple orbits, including SES's O3b medium Earth orbit satellites, as part of the effort to establish Multi-Domain Operations.


title: SES S.A.

text: In December 2021, Honeywell, Hughes Network Systems and SES demonstrated multi-orbit high-speed airborne connectivity for military customers using Honeywell's JetWave MCX terminal and a Hughes HM-series modem, and SES satellites in both medium Earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary orbit (GEO). The tests achieved full duplex data rates of more than 40 megabits per second via a number of SES' (GEO) satellites including GovSat-1, and the high-throughput, low-latency O3b MEO satellite constellation, with connections moving between GEO/MEO links in under 30 sec.


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2022, SES formed a joint venture with India's biggest telco, Jio Platforms (JPL). The newly formed Jio Space Technology Limited will deliver broadband services in India of up to 100Gbit/s capacity, using the SES-12 high-throughput geostationary satellite and the forthcoming O3b mPOWER medium Earth orbit satellite constellation, to extend JPL's terrestrial network, enhancing access to digital services in unconnected areas within India and the region. JPL and SES will own 51% and 49% equity stake respectively in the new company.


title: SES S.A.

text: In February 2022, Orange announced that, along with SES, it will deploy and manage the first gateway in Africa for SES's forthcoming O3b mPOWER medium Earth orbit satellite constellation, to provide high-speed, low-latency, and cloud-optimised connectivity services across Africa, and to support telemetry, tracking and command functions for the satellites. The gateway will be located at the Sonatel teleport in Gandoul, Senegal.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2022, SES announced a deal with mobile operator, Verizon to speed up deployment of 5G services in the US. Under the agreement, SES will install filters and other equipment to Earth Stations across the entire country, to give Verizon access to the 3.7-3.8 GHz C-band spectrum in key regions ahead of the deadlines for relocation of existing satellite services set out in the FCC's order to make part of the C-Band spectrum available for 5G terrestrial fixed and mobile broadband services.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2022, SES announced the agreement to acquire DRS Global Enterprise Solutions (GES), a US-based subsidiary of defence contractor, Leonardo DRS for US$450 million. GES provides managed satcom services to the US Defence Department and other government agencies, and when the transaction is concluded (expected towards the end of 2022 after regulatory approvals) the business will be combined with SES subsidiary, SES Government Solutions, doubling its revenue from the US government and further expanding market access for SES's next-generation Medium Earth orbit network, O3b mPOWER, which will begin operation at that time.


title: SES S.A.

text: In March 2022, SES extended the November 2021 order for two satellites from Thales Alenia Space with a third satellite, SES-26. With both Ku-band and C-band transponders, the reconfigurable software-defined satellite will replace NSS-12 at 57°E, providing content delivery and connectivity across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2022, SES subsidiary, SES Government Solutions, in partnership with Earth imaging company, Planet Labs PBC, was awarded a US$28.96 million contract from NASA's Communications Services Project for real-time, always-on low-latency connectivity services to NASA spacecraft, using SES's geostationary orbiting C-band satellites and medium Earth orbiting Ka-band satellites, including the forthcoming O3b mPOWER constellation.


title: SES S.A.

text: In May 2022, in conjunction with Kazakhstani mobile network operator, Kcell, SES used the O3b satellite constellation to demonstrate that medium Earth orbit satellites could be used to provide high-speed 3G and 4G connectivity to remote regions of Kazakhstan for reliable video calling, conferencing and streaming, and web browsing, with a latency five times lower than on the existing platform based on geostationary orbit satellites.


title: SES S.A.

text: In June 2022, the SES-22 satellite was successfully launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station by a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. SES-22 will operate at 135° W, and is the first to launch of SES's six geostationary C-band satellites (SES-18, SES-19, SES-20, SES-21, SES-22, and SES-23) that will enable existing TV and radio services to be moved from the lower 300 MHz of the C-band spectrum to the upper 200 MHz, as part of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) programme to make room for the deployment of 5G services across the US.


title: SES S.A.

text: In August 2022, SES completed the US$450 million acquisition of DRS Global Enterprise Solutions (GES) from US defence contractor, Leonardo DRS, after obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals. The business will be combined with SES subsidiary, SES Government Solutions to create a “scaled solutions provider serving the multi-orbit satellite communications needs of the US Government” and SES’s largest data business segment by revenue.


title: SES S.A.

text: In October 2022, the SES-20 and SES-21 satellites were successfully launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. The two Boeing-built C-band satellites are part of SES’s programme to clear part of the C-band spectrum for 5G services. SES-20 and SES-21 will be positioned at 103° West and 131° West, respectively, to provide a continued service of TV and radio broadcasts to the US. The satellites are expected to begin operations in November 2022. SES-21 became operational at 131° West on 1 December 2022.


title: SES S.A.

text: In October 2022, SES announced that it had launched a content distribution platform dedicated to sports and events, providing coverage over Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, for customers including broadcasters, professional sports leagues, national and international sports associations, and sports rights holders.


title: SES S.A.

text: On 16 December 2022, the first two O3b mPOWER satellites were successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 5:48 pm local time. It will take approximately six months for each satellite to reach its designated medium Earth orbit and for commissioning, and the O3b mPower service is expected to start in Q3 2023.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES is active in the hosted payload market, selling space on planned and under-construction satellites to governments and institutions. SES-2 (launched September 2011) carries the US Air Force's Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP), a wide field-of-view, passive infrared sensor to provide early warning of missile launches, the first time a US Air Force payload has been hosted on a commercial mission.


title: SES S.A.

text: The SES-5 and Astra 5B satellites (launched July 2012 and March 2014, respectively) incorporate European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) payloads, a supplementary network to the Global Positioning System (GPS) and GLONASS navigation systems.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES-15 (launched May 2017) includes the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) air navigation aid to augment the Global Positioning System (GPS), with the goal of improving its accuracy, integrity and availability.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES-14 (launched January 2018) hosts the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission for NASA to investigate the Sun's impact on the Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere.


title: SES S.A.

text: SES Government Solutions operates Earth stations at the following United States Government locations:


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Shadowrun Returns is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Harebrained Schemes. It takes place in the science fantasy setting of the "Shadowrun" tabletop role-playing game. The game was crowd funded through Kickstarter and released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android in 2013.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: An expansion pack titled "", was released in 2014. It was later converted to a standalone release, "Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director's Cut". In 2015, Harebrained Schemes launched another Kickstarter campaign to partially fund their next game, "". Similar to the "Dragonfall – Director's Cut" edition, "Hong Kong" was released in 2015 as a standalone release built using an upgraded version of the "Shadowrun Returns" engine. A remastered compilation game including "Shadowrun Returns", "Shadowrun Dragonfall: Director's Cut", and "Shadowrun: Hong Kong", is released on Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 21, 2022.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The player can customize their character's gender and appearance. There are five races to choose from: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls. The game lacks traditional character classes, but players may optionally play as one of six pregenerated archetypes: street samurai, cybernetically-enhanced warriors who focus on weapon mastery; the spell-casting mages; deckers, who focus primarily on computer hacking; shamans, who summon spirits to assist them in battle; riggers, who control mechanical drones; and physical adepts, who are magically-enhanced monks.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: As the story progresses, the player is given character points, known as "karma", to spend on improving their characters. If the player chose an archetype, it controls what skills and equipment the character starts with, but any character can gain any skill (e.g., deckers can spend karma to gain a shaman's summoning abilities). Besides the player character, up to three other characters can be hired during missions. Some non-player-characters are required during certain missions.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: While gameplay is mostly linear, some exploration is possible while completing objectives. The player can converse with various characters; different statistics and skills give new dialogue options, affect quest progression, or give different rewards.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The player can interact with the environment in some ways. For instance, pushing aside objects or hacking terminals to find hidden rooms, gaining access to new routes to their main objective or finding items to use or sell. Mages can see magical ley lines, which enhance their abilities, and shamans summon spirits in designated places. Deckers can enter a virtual reality world known as the Matrix at specific points. The decker's avatar engages in a minigame where they fight ICs and enemy deckers while trying to gather data and hack devices. For example, a decker may turn off elevators to stop enemy reinforcements or turn them on to progress further.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Combat is turn based and includes tactical elements, such as taking cover. Players control the actions of their team followed by the enemies taking theirs. Each action has a cost in terms of action points. Characters start with a base of two action points per turn and later gain a third point. They can gain or lose action points based on abilities, spells or items. Action points are used in activities such as moving, firing a weapon, reloading, or using a spell or item.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Each character carries up to three weapons and can switch between them at no cost. Weapons have different attacks, depending on the weapon and characters' skills. Ammunition is unlimited but ranged weapons need to be reloaded. Riggers can equip drones like weapons and use their action points to manually control them, attacking enemies or healing allies.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: A character with shaman abilities can summon one additional allied spirit to the field, either through consumable items or special points where spirits linger. Managing a spirit lowers the shaman's action points just like a drone does for a rigger. Depending on how much power the shaman imparts on them and how long they have been summoned, these spirits have a chance to break free and become hostile or flee.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The player character may develop focus in one specific archetype or balance advancement between combat, magical and drone capability. Even with the required skills, equipment and action points, one character may not simultaneously field both a drone and a spirit.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The game ships with a campaign called "Dead Man's Switch". Further campaigns can be downloaded from external websites.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The player assumes the role of a shadowrunner who receives a pre-recorded message from his or her old shadowrunner accomplice, Sam Watts, which was triggered by a dead man's switch embedded within his body. Sam's message states that he has 100,000 nuyen being held in escrow as a reward should the player bring whomever was responsible for his death to justice. Upon arriving in Seattle, the runner discovers that Sam is the latest victim of the Emerald City Ripper, a serial killer who has been surgically removing organs from their victims. Afterwards the runner meets Jake Armitage, the protagonist of the SNES "Shadowrun" game, who provides some leads to investigate.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: After receiving help from Coyote, a female human bartender/shadowrunner who first asked for assistance in a private war against those who make "Better-Than-Life" ("BTL") chips, the runner discovers that the Ripper is a male elf named Silas Forsberg whose victims were those who had a transplanted organ from Sam's mother. After killing Silas, the player learns he was directed to commit the Ripper murders by Jessica Watts, Sam's twin sister. Sam and Jessica had lived a comfortable life before their father's passing, and despite his best efforts early on to live a decent life, he cracked under the pressure and spent the family savings on drugs and alcohol. He eventually became a shadowrunner to make ends meet, and to further fuel his self-destructive habits.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The runner confronts Jessica but she escapes. The runner finds that Jessica is a high-ranking member of the Universal Brotherhood, an international New Age organization that attracts the disenfranchised. The runner and Coyote investigate the restricted areas of the facility and discover that the Universal Brotherhood is itself a front for a cult trying to create an insect spirit hive. Jessica is revealed to be a shaman who is one of the few who are aware of the Brotherhood's true nature and she unleashes extra-dimensional insect spirits that cannot be killed. The team flees, rescuing a woman named Mary-Louise who is designated to become "the queen", similar to a queen bee.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Mary-Louise connects the team with her boyfriend, a decker going by the alias Baron Samedi, who organizes a shadowrun on Telestrian Industries to steal a sample of Project Aegis; a chemical weapon capable of killing the insect spirits. The runner acquires the sample but is captured while trying to escape and is brought before James Telestrian III. When it is revealed that the runner rescued Mary-Louise, who is Telestrian's daughter, he decides instead of punishing the runner to hire him or her to lead a team to deploy Project Aegis along with the immortal elf Harlequin. Telestrian explains that Jessica's ritual to bring an insect spirit queen into this world requires a blood relative. His father had an affair with Melinda Watts, Sam and Jessica's mother, thus Mary-Louise was a viable candidate since they shared the same grandfather. Should Jessica perform the ritual on a blood relative, it would result in a full-scale invasion of the extra-dimensional insect spirits.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Telestrian gives the runner and Harlequin each a shotgun able to fire capsules filled with the remaining Aegis compound, which can kill the insect spirits. The team infiltrates the hive and they fight their way into the heart of the inner sanctum where Telestrian's sister, Lynne, has volunteered to let the queen take over her body, as she is also a blood relation to Jessica. The team disrupts the summoning by seriously wounding Jessica and killing most of the insect spirits inside the hive. The queen spirit abandons Jessica, and the player is given the option to kill her or arrest her. Lynne survives, but is arrested and eventually sent to a mental hospital.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The game concludes with Armitage, Coyote, Harlequin, and James Telestrian III discussing the fallout of the raid, with Harlequin musing that other Brotherhood chapters across the world also hold hives similar to the one in Seattle. When the runner tries to collect the money for bringing Sam's killer to justice, Sam's prerecorded message asks the runner to apologize to Jessica for what he put her through, and reveals that he never actually had any money in escrow.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: An epilogue describes the immediate events after the game, tying in with the larger Shadowrun canon. Media coverage of the events left out details of shadowrunners and insect spirits, likely due to the influence of the Brotherhood. Aegis was eventually developed into a product called "Fluorescing Astral Bacteria-3", or "FAB-3". The Chicago Universal Brotherhood hive is botched and the city is largely sealed up behind a wall to keep the rampaging insect spirits inside the city. FAB-3 is used some time later to cleanse Chicago of its insect spirit infestation.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: In the main campaign of the game's first expansion, players assume the role of a Shadowrunner who has recently arrived in the anarchic free state of Berlin to join a team headed by an old colleague, Monika Schäfer.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: In 2056, the player travels to the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone, meeting with their foster brother Duncan and his superior officer Carter, who agree to investigate their foster father's mysterious message, are ambushed by the HKPF, and escape to and continue their investigation from a small boat village built on the outskirts of a modern Kowloon Walled City, a nightmarish slum built on the ruins of the original.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The game's lead designer is Jordan Weisman, the creator of the "Shadowrun" tabletop role-playing game, who was inspired to create a game with a "more authentic tone" after the release of the 2007 "Shadowrun" first-person shooter, which he was not involved with. Weisman was originally inspired to create a video game in the "Shadowrun" universe after reacquiring the rights to it from Microsoft through his Smith & Tinker startup company in 2007. Unfortunately, due to restrictions on the license, he could not obtain the backing of other publishers for new "Shadowrun" projects. The success of crowd funding financing models then motivated him to obtain funding for his project, "Shadowrun Returns," through the Kickstarter crowd funding platform.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The project was opened to pledges in March 2012 and met its funding goal of $400,000 within 28 hours. Upon reaching the $1 million mark, Weisman recorded a video for the Kickstarter project stating that if the project were to reach $1.5 million, the developers would develop a "backers-only exclusive mission which will tie together the stories of the SNES title and the Sega Genesis title." This goal was achieved but Kickstarter backers demanded that the mission be made available to everyone, so Harebrained Schemes announced that the mission would be available to them for a limited amount of time before being available to the public. The funding period ended on 29 April 2012, by which time the project had gathered $1,895,772 worth of pledges. The success of the campaign made "Complex" rank it number eight on their list of the biggest video game wins and fails on Kickstarter in 2012.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The game was developed for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, as well as the iPad and Android tablets. Weisman justified the addition of tablets as a development platform alongside more traditional development for the desktop because "the style of game we want to make lends itself best to these platforms," and "the gameplay determined the platform."


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Weisman announced the game as a "graphically rich 2D turn-based single player game with deep story interaction, meaningful character development, and highly-contextual tactical combat." It is accompanied by a level editor for players to create their own content. The game implements character types from the role-playing game, including Street Samurai, Combat Mage, Decker (i.e. hacker), Shaman, Rigger and Adept. In collaboration with Cliffhanger Productions, characters and plotlines of "Shadowrun Returns" will be carried on to "Shadowrun Online", which is set approximately 20 years later and will be based upon the video game multiplayer aspect "Shadowrun" has potential for.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The music was composed by Marshall Parker and Sam Powell who were involved in the original SNES and Sega Genesis iterations, as well as the independent composer Gavin Parker, whose previous work includes "Test Drive Unlimited", "Viva Piñata" and "Scene it?". The official launch trailer was released on July 18, which included voice talent by Charles Legget and music by composer Jon Everist, who went on to compose the majority of the music for Shadowrun: Dragonfall and all of the critically acclaimed score for Shadowrun: Hong Kong.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: The game originally had an estimated delivery date of January 2013, but the designers stated that the additional content to be added after meeting stretch goals will require more time. On June 18, 2013 the developers announced an official release date of July 25, 2013. It was released on July 25, 2013 through Steam, with a DRM-free download available to Kickstarter backers only. Initially the DRM-free version was only available to backers as the developing team managed to get an exception only for Kickstarter backers while licensing the "Shadowrun" brand, but on November 12, 2013 Harebrained Schemes announced that they had reached an agreement to release DRM-free versions of "Shadowrun Returns" and future expansions, as well as sell them through GOG.com.


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: "Shadowrun Returns" received generally favorable reviews upon release, garnering a 76/100 on review aggregation website Metacritic. "IGN" reviewer Dan Stapleton stated that the game's best days were ahead of it, and they will be more interested in it "a year from now, after the community has used the included mod tools to build on it, than in what it is today."


title: Shadowrun Returns

text: Several reviewers criticized the game's save system, which saves the game only at area transitions. Functionality to allow the player to save the game at any time was omitted because of development resource constraints, but was later added in the "Shadowrun Dragonfall" expansion.


The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA or CRC) is a Protestant Calvinist Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. Having roots in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands, the Christian Reformed Church was founded by Dutch immigrants in 1857 and is theologically Calvinist.


title: Christian Reformed Church in North America

text: The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) split from the Reformed Church in America (then known as the Dutch Reformed Church) in an 1857 secession. This was rooted in part as a result of a theological dispute that originated in the Netherlands when Hendrik De Cock was deposed for his Calvinist convictions, leading there to the Secession of 1834–35. For the CRC founders in America, the RCA at the time appeared to contain problems similar to those they saw in the State Church in the old country.


text: So, in 1857 four churches with about 130 families (about 10 percent of the Dutch immigrant church members in West Michigan at the time) seceded. In March, the Noordeloos church of the Classis of Holland, Michigan left the Reformed Church in America. On March 19, some members of Second Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan organized a church that became First CRC, Grand Rapids, Michigan. On April 8, churches in Graafschap and Polkton also left the Classis of Holland. Two ministers, Koene van den Bosch and Hendrik Klijn, joined the separatists, although Klijn returned to the Reformed Church six months later.


text: The new denomination that formed from this secession was led by elders and ministers from the churches in the northern Netherlands, especially from the province of Groningen, that had organized after the 1834 secession in the Netherlands, although members of the new denomination came from all parts of the Netherlands. The reasons given for leaving the Reformed Church were the use of hymns (versus Exclusive psalmody) during worship, allowing free access to communion, lax interpretation of grace, permitting membership in Freemasonry, and failure to provide catechetical instruction to young people.


text: For the two years the denomination had no corporate name. In 1859 Holland Reformed Church ("Hollandsche Gereformeerde Kerk") was adopted, which was changed to Free Dutch Reformed Church (no record of a Dutch translation) in 1861. Two years later True Dutch Reformed Church ("Ware Hollandsche Gereformeerde Kerk") was approved which was changed to Holland Christian Reformed Church ("Hollandsche Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk") in 1880. In 1894 congregations also could use Christian Reformed Church ("Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk") as well. The full adoption of Christian Reformed Church came in 1904, which became Christian Reformed Church in North America in 1974.


text: In 1875, the denomination opened a theological school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Preparatory Department of the school became Calvin College, while the Theological Department became Calvin Theological Seminary. By 1880 the denomination had grown to 42 congregations. Ten years later the number had grown to 100 located in 11 states. During the 1890s congregations from the True Protestant Dutch Reformed Church (located in New York and New Jersey) joined the CRC. During the 20th century a number of congregations from the disbanding German Reformed Churches also joined the CRC.


text: By 1920 the denomination had grown to 350 congregations. At that time an estimated 350,000 Dutch immigrants had come to the United States, some of whom were in the Dutch Reformed tradition that since the 1880s was influenced by Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian, journalist, and statesman (he served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, 1901-1905). He founded the "Gereformeerde Kerken", a newspaper, the Free University of Amsterdam, and the Anti-Revolutionary Political Party.


text: After the Second World War a new wave of Dutch Calvinist immigration occurred this time to Canada, most of whom were Kuyperian. During the 15 years after the war almost one-half of the denomination's new congregations (138 of 288) were in Canada.


text: During the early 1920s the CRC had adopted three doctrinal points regarding common grace. Three ministers, Herman Hoeksema, George Ophoff, and Henry Danhof who were deposed for rejecting these three points as being contrary to the Reformed confessions. This dispute led to the three ministers and their followers leaving the CRC and forming what is now the Protestant Reformed Churches in America. During the early 1950s a division within the Protestant Reformed Churches in America led to the majority (about 60 percent) of the members forming the Orthodox Protestant Reformed Church, which joined the CRC in 1961.


text: In 1975 the CRC joined the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in forming the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC).


text: In the last decades of the 20th century, the Synod enacted innovations that were rejected by some of its more conservative members and one-time sister denominations. Out of concern about the state of affairs in the CRC, a group of ministers formed the Mid-America Reformed Seminary in 1981, and around the same time a federation of churches known as the Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches (OCRC), comprising some former CRC congregations, was formed. The 1995 decision to ordain women led to the formation of the United Reformed Churches in North America (URC), and the severing of fraternal relationships between the CRC and the OPC and PCA in 1997. Because of the decision to ordain women, NAPARC suspended the CRC from membership in 1999 and expelled it in 2001. This gradual shift has spurred some of the more conservative congregations to leave; a significant number of these have ended up in the PCA, OPC, or URC. In 2008, the OCRC dissolved and member churches joined the URC.


text: The CRC was a charter member of the Reformed Ecumenical Council, which organized at Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1946. The CRC joined the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2002 after many years of hesitation due to what was seen as the more liberal membership and agenda of that body. In 2010, the Reformed Ecumenical Council and World Alliance of Reformed Churches merged to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches at a joint meeting hosted by the CRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The CRC also belongs to the Canadian Council of Churches, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the World Reformed Fellowship, and the National Association of Evangelicals. The CRC participates in Christian Churches Together in the United States and in the Global Christian Forum.


text: As of 2016 the CRC has bilateral relationships with 39 denominations around the globe: 24 are in "ecclesiastical fellowship;" 10 are "in dialogue;" and five are in "corresponding fellowship." In North America, the CRC is denominational partners with the more mainline Reformed Church in America (from which it had split in 1857) and in ecclesiastical fellowship with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and .


text: The Christian Reformed Church is Calvinist, confessional and evangelical in its theology. It places high value on theological study and the application of theology to current issues, emphasizes the importance of careful Biblical hermeneutics, and has traditionally respected the personal conscience of individual members who feel they are led by the Holy Spirit. The Church promotes the belief that Christians do not earn their salvation, but that it is a wholly unmerited gift from God, and that good works are the Christian response to that gift.


text: Reformed theology as practiced in the CRC is founded in Calvinism. A more recent theologian of great influence on this denomination was Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). Kuyper, who served as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905, promoted a belief in social responsibility and called on Christians to engage actively in improving all aspects of life and society. Kuyper is regarded as a founding father of Christian Democracy political ideology. Current scholars with wider reputations, such as philosophers Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, as well as Lewis B. Smedes, have associations with this denomination and with Calvin College. Philip Yancey has stated, "I also admire the tradition of the Christian Reformed Church, which advocates 'bringing every thought captive' under the mind of Christ; that tiny 'transforming' denomination has had an enormous influence on science, philosophy, and the arts."


text: The CRC officially subscribes to the Ecumenical Creeds—the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed—as well as three Reformed Confessions, commonly referred as the Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort.


text: In 1986, the CRC formulated a statement of faith titled "Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony" which addresses issues such as secularism, individualism, and relativism. These issues were seen as "unique challenges of faith presented by the times in which we live". While not having confessional status, it is meant to give a hymn-like expression of our faith within the heritage of the Reformed confessions, especially addressing issues that confront the church today. The Contemporary Testimony was reviewed and updated in 2008. The second Contemporary Testimony held by the CRCNA is the Belhar Confession, a testimony written in Afrikaans in 1982 from Reformed churches in South Africa.


text: The Christian Reformed Church has stated its position on a number of social issues. Summaries of those positions and references to full reports with exact statements can be found at crcna.org.


text: The CRC is opposed to abortion except in cases when the "life of the mother is genuinely threatened" by her pregnancy. The church "affirms the unique value of all human life" from the "moment of conception". Believers are called upon to show "compassion" to those experiencing unwanted pregnancies, even while they speak out against the "atrocity" of abortion. In 2010, the Synod adopted a recommendation "to instruct the Office of Social Justice and Hunger Action (OSJ) to boldly advocate for the church's position against abortion, and to help equip churches to promote the sanctity of human life" (Acts of Synod 2010, p. 883)."


text: Unlike many other Christian denominations, the CRC does not have an official stance on euthanasia. Their Acts of the 1972 Synod, however, can be interpreted as also a condemnation of euthanasia, since it opposes "the wanton or arbitrary destruction of any human being at any stage of its development from the point of conception to the point of death". (Acts of Synod 1972, p. 64) The CRC already expressed its official opposition to legal euthanasia both in Canada and the United States.


text: The CRC has a moderate stance on the death penalty: "The CRC has declared that modern states are not obligated by Scripture, creed, or principle to institute and practice capital punishment. It does, however, recognize that Scripture acknowledges the right of modern states to institute and practice capital punishment if it is exercised with utmost restraint."


text: The stance of the CRC is that homosexuality is "a condition of disordered sexuality that reflects the brokenness of our sinful world". Christian homosexuals should not pursue "homosexualism", defined as "explicit homosexual practice", which is "incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture". Christian homosexuals should be given "loving support" within the church community, compassion, and support "towards healing and wholeness". Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, holy obedience, and the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as to heterosexual Christians.


text: The CRC educates its constituency and mobilizes member advocacy on a wide range of social justice issues in Canada and the United States. It does so primarily through its Office of Social Justice and Hunger Action (OSJ) and the Centre for Public Dialogue (CPD) in Canada. Major issues on which the CRC has clear, biblically rooted positions and an active advocacy effort include: Reducing or ending abortion, comprehensive reform of the U.S. immigration system, ending global poverty and hunger, fighting systemic racism in both Canada and the U.S., achieving more justice for aboriginal groups in the U.S. and Canada, organizing for a stronger governmental and private sector response to care for God's creation – including climate change, refugee protection and resettlement, and standing in solidarity with those who are persecuted for their faith.


text: The CRC has mission efforts and ministries in Nigeria, South America, Southeast Asia, and the Navajo reservation. Among the most prominent reservation churches are the Zuni and Rehoboth missions. Rehoboth was founded in 1903 and has grown significantly into a large church and has an independent school with over 500 students in grades K-12; Zuni has experienced the same in its community. The Rehoboth hospital moved to the neighboring town of Gallup in 1970. Rehoboth built a high-school in 1951, and a new high school, funded by the DeVos family, was built in 2018. The first Rehoboth church was built in 1908, though the congregation moved to a new building in 2005.


text: Church polity refers to the form of governance and organization of a church. The CRC follows a Presbyterian form of church polity organized under governance by elders, as compared to Episcopal polities organized under governance by bishops (Roman Catholic, United Methodist, and Episcopal denominations) and Congregational polities organized under the governance of the local congregation (Congregational, Baptist, Disciples of Christ). Governance by elders is assumed throughout the Christian Reformed Church Order, but CRC polity is not exactly like that of Presbyterian denominations. Two particular differences include the fact that the CRC has limited tenure for officebearers (so elders and deacons serve "terms", not "forever"), and ministers are ordained and credentialed by a local congregation, not the regional classis or presbytery. Another key difference is that church polity in the CRC does not have confessional status and, therefore, the Church Order does not have the same authority as the creeds. The Church Order is subordinate to the creeds and confessions, which are subordinate to Scripture.


text: The Christian Reformed Church has three levels of assembly: the church council (local assembly, composed of a congregation's deacons, elders, and ministerial staff), the classis (regional assembly, of which there are 48: 37 in the United States and 12 in Canada, with one straddling the international border), and the synod (bi-national assembly.) The church's Synod meets annually in June, with 192 delegates: a minister, an elder and a deacon from each classis, plus one other officebearer.


text: Central offices of the church are located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Burlington, Ontario. The CRC in North America has sent missionaries to many countries around the world where Christian Reformed churches have been established, but these have organized on their own and are independent from the North American denomination.


text: Reformed teaching puts an emphasis on education. As such, many CRC members support Christian day schools as well as post-secondary education.


text: The denomination owns and supports Calvin University as well as Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the denomination's U.S. offices are located. Historically most ministers ordained in the CRC were trained at Calvin Seminary. Other colleges associated with the denomination are Kuyper College (also located in Grand Rapids), Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois; Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa; Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario; The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, and the post-graduate Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario.


text: Elim Christian Services in Palos Heights, Illinois, offers a school devoted to the education of those with special needs.


text: CRC churches are predominantly located in areas of Dutch immigrant settlement in North America, including Brookfield, Wisconsin, Western Michigan, Chicago, the city of Lynden in Washington State, British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Alberta, Iowa, suburban southern California, Ripon, California, and northern New Jersey. About 75% of the CRCNA congregations are located in the US, while the remaining 25% are in Canada. The church has grown more ethnically diverse with some congregations predominantly Native American, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, African-American and Hispanic. All together, Christian Reformed Churches speak around 20 languages and over 170 congregations speak a language other than English or Dutch. Many churches, particularly in more urban areas, are becoming much more integrated. Emerging from its role as primarily an immigrant church, the church has become more outward focused in recent years.


text: After a time of steady growth during the period of 1963–1992, membership totals have declined, even though the number of churches has grown. In 1992, at the height of its membership, the Christian Reformed Churches had 316,415 members in 981 churches in the United States and Canada. In 2019 membership had dropped to 222,156 members in 1072 churches, marking a loss of 78,164 members (or 26% of its membership) in the last 25 years.


text: Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and founder of Willow Creek Association, was raised in the Christian Reformed Church, but left and was a critic of the CRC's apparent lack of evangelistic focus. In later years, Hybels has softened his stance, noting that the CRC has made progress in evangelism and that many CRC members attend the evangelism conferences hosted by the church he founded.


text: Others, such as novelist Peter De Vries and filmmakers Paul Schrader ("Raging Bull", "Taxi Driver"), Leonard Schrader ("Kiss of the Spider Woman") and Patricia Rozema ("I've Heard the Mermaids Sing", "Mansfield Park") were raised in the church by CRC-member parents and attended denominational schools, but later left the church. However, the influence of CRC origin can be detected in their later work, especially the films of Paul Schrader, who has publicly stated that "a religious upbringing... never goes away."


text: The Christian Reformed Church is not a worldwide organization but has similar, independent church bodies in other lands.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Madame Rouge is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, first appearing in "Doom Patrol" #86 (March 1964). The character was created by Arnold Drake.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Michelle Gomez portrays the live-action version of the character starting in the third season of the HBO Max series "Doom Patrol".


title: Madame Rouge

text: Laura De Mille was originally a French stage actress. After an automobile accident, she developed a dual good/evil split personality. At this point, she attracted the notice of The Brain and his associate Monsieur Mallah. With Mallah's help, the Brain performed surgery on De Mille that was, from his perspective, successful, sublimating her good personality and allowing her evil personality to remain dominant. As Madame Rouge, De Mille became the only female member of the Brotherhood of Evil, and assisted the Brotherhood in its continuing conflicts against the Doom Patrol. At first, Madame Rouge was simply a master of disguise; subsequent surgery by the Brain eventually gave her the ability to alter her appearance and stretch her limbs.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Later, Rouge's split personality manifested again, with her good personality occasionally appearing. Rouge was romantically linked to the Doom Patrol's leader, Niles Caulder ("The Chief"), who was able to help Rouge overcome her evil side and ally with the Doom Patrol.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Ultimately, Rouge's mind reverted to its evil state, causing her to seek vengeance against both the Brotherhood of Evil and the Doom Patrol for their previous interference. She was apparently successful in murdering both groups. Years later, Robotman and the Teen Titans tracked down Rouge and her ally, General Zahl. Beast Boy (then Changeling) killed Rouge, although at the moment of her death, her good side apparently manifested; she forgave Changeling and called to Niles, her apparent true love.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Madame Rouge's daughter, Gemini, also a shapeshifter, appeared years later to seek revenge against Beast Boy.


title: Madame Rouge

text: In 2004, DC writer John Byrne restarted the "Doom Patrol" series and declared that the previous history had never happened. In spite of this, Madame Rouge was a zombie summoned by Brother Blood to keep the Titans from freeing Kid Eternity in "Teen Titans" (vol. 3) #31 (2006). Since then, Byrne's reboot of the Doom Patrol franchise was overturned as a continuity glitch created by Superboy-Prime. As such, Madame Rouge is still dead and her history has been left intact. However, her daughter Gemini has taken up wearing her mother's costume and is a member of the new Brotherhood of Evil.


title: Madame Rouge

text: In "Blackest Night", Madame Rouge has been identified as one of the deceased entombed below the Hall of Justice. Madame Rouge's corpse is revived as a Black Lantern during the event.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Originally, Madame Rouge was a master of disguise. Later, the Brain gave her ability to stretch any part of her body to incredible lengths, and could alter her facial features to disguise herself as any person.


title: Madame Rouge

text: In the "Teen Titans" animated series, Rouge retains her abilities of disguise and stretching, but her powers appear to be greater. She can reform her body, repairing any damage yet seen, can "flow" through fences, alter her color, and has sufficient strength to throw people around like dolls or smash brick walls with her stretched limbs. She can mimic voices and use her body to surround and smother her opponents. She can be hurt by flame or frozen by cold, and has trouble maintaining a disguise in high temperatures, but appears to be able to repair damage simply by shapeshifting into an undamaged form.


title: Madame Rouge

text: In the animated series she could extend her limbs to great lengths for surprise attacks such as seizing an enemy in her arms, and at speeds that allowed her to strike Kid Flash.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Madame Rouge appears as a major villainess in "Teen Titans", voiced by Hynden Walch. Her accent in the series is not French, but Russian, and her costume is red instead of blue, which is consistent with her name ("rouge" is French for "red"). As with other Brotherhood of Evil members, the Brain views Rouge as one of his most valuable agents and sends her to take out Wildebeest, Hotspot, Kid Flash, and Robin, all of whom she personally defeats in some form or other, but is shown to be extremely vulnerable to Jinx's "bad-luck" powers, which led to her undoing. Rouge personally takes pleasure in physically and emotionally tormenting anyone she seems to view as "children". Along with the rest of the Brotherhood, she was flash-frozen into an ice sculpture at the end of "Titans Together".


title: Madame Rouge

text: The DC Nation animated short "The Spy Within the Doom Patrol" features Madame Rouge, voiced by Debra Wilson. She infiltrates the team by disguising herself as the Chief. Having been discovered by Negative Man, she attacks the team and succeeds in incapacitating them.


title: Madame Rouge

text: Madame Rouge makes her live-action debut in the third season of "Doom Patrol", portrayed by Michelle Gomez. In the series, she arrives in a time machine with a very specific mission that she cannot remember and warns the Doom Patrol about the Brotherhood of Evil and the Sisterhood of Dada.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Erik Hersholt Nielsen (February 24, 1924 – September 4, 2008) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the longtime Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for Yukon, and was Leader of the Opposition and the third deputy prime minister. He was the elder brother of actor Leslie Nielsen.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, the eldest of three boys. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (née Davies), was an immigrant from Wales, and his father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen (1900-1975), was a Danish-born constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Nielsen's family lived mainly in Alberta during his formative years, and he graduated from high school in Edmonton in 1942.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942, just after graduation, and received his training mainly in Alberta. He flew 33 missions in No. 101 Squadron RAF in World War II, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) for "courage and devotion to duty,". He earned the rank of lieutenant. He rejoined the RCAF, 1946–51, as a legal officer, while earning a law degree at Dalhousie. He established his law practice in Whitehorse, Yukon.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen was elected to parliament in late 1957 (Nielsen lost in the 1957 federal election, but the result was controverted and Nielsen won the resulting byelection) and remained an MP without interruption for 30 years. He was a backbench MP during the Diefenbaker government but became prominent during the Conservative Party's long period in Opposition during the 1960s and 1970s joining the shadow cabinet in 1964. In 1978, he ran for the leadership of the newly formed Yukon Progressive Conservative Party as it prepared for the territory's first partisan elections but was defeated by Hilda Watson by one vote.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: With the 1979 federal election, the Tories formed government for the first time in over 15 years and Nielsen was appointed Minister of Public Works in the short-lived minority government of Prime Minister Joe Clark. After the Tories were defeated in the 1980 election, he served as Opposition House Leader from 1981 until 1983, and engineered the "Bell Ringing Affair" to protest the Liberal government's omnibus energy bill. The business of the House of Commons of Canada ground to a halt for three weeks because the Opposition refused to respond to the bell summoning Members of Parliament to come to the chamber to vote.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen served as Leader of the Opposition in 1983 between the resignation of Joe Clark and the election of Brian Mulroney as PC leader, and continued to lead the party in the House until Mulroney won a seat in a by-election, at which point Nielsen returned to his previous position as House Leader.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: When Mulroney became prime minister, he made Nielsen his deputy prime minister from 1984 to 1986, and President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada from 1984 to 1985. Nielsen was effectively the senior Government House Leader in all but name. He also served as Minister of National Defence from 1985 to 1986.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen has been called "Yukon Erik", (a reference to wrestler Yukon Eric of the 1950s) but he has also been called "Velcro lips" for a tight-lipped reticence during his time in office. The tenaciousness and aggressiveness that made Nielsen a successful Opposition MP made him a liability as a Cabinet minister as he gave the impression of being secretive and disdainful of criticism by the Opposition and the media. His habit of stonewalling questions had the effect of prolonging the shelf life of political scandals in Parliament, and thus hurt the government's reputation. This became most apparent during the Sinclair Stevens conflict-of-interest scandal, in which Mulroney was out of Parliament for two weeks while the opposition barraged Nielsen with questions. Shortly after Mulroney returned in June 1986, he forced both Nielsen and Stevens to resign from cabinet.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Years afterward, future Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps would remark that the sacking of Nielsen made Mulroney "look decisive", when pointing out the importance of a deputy prime minister in protecting the prime minister from political damage during question period.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen resigned his seat in Parliament in January 1987 when he was given the position of chairman of the National Transportation Agency. He withdrew from the public service in 1992 to become president of Solar Engineering, Hawaii Inc. and Solar Electric Engineering Distributors Canada.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: One of Nielsen's brothers was actor Leslie Nielsen. The relationship formed the premise of an HBO mockumentary titled "The Canadian Conspiracy", comically alleging a Canadian subversion of the United States through its media. Nielsen was also a nephew of actor Jean Hersholt.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: Nielsen wrote a memoir, "The House Is Not a Home" (1989, ), noted for its bracing directness both about his colleagues and about his own personal life.


title: Erik Nielsen

text: He died at his home in Kelowna, British Columbia on September 4, 2008, from a massive heart attack. On December 15, the government of Yukon renamed the main airport at Whitehorse, the capital of the territory, to Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport in Nielsen's memory.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: 8 Canada Square (also known as the HSBC Tower) is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. The building serves as the global headquarters of the HSBC Group. The building has 45 storeys and houses approximately 8,000 employees.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: Having been commissioned by the owners of the Canary Wharf Site to do the outline design prior to gaining site-wide outline planning permission, and because he had designed HSBC's last head office at 1 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, Sir Norman Foster (now Lord Foster of Thames Bank) was appointed as architect.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: Construction began in January 1999, with work beginning on the installation of the 4,900 glass panels commencing in the summer of 2000. The work was carried out by Canary Wharf Contractors. In May 2000, three workmen were killed in a crane accident.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: The topping out ceremony took place on 7 March 2001, with the hoisting in of the final steel girder attended by bankers, journalists and contractors. The first HSBC employees began work in the building on 2 September 2002, with phased occupation completed by 17 February 2003, and the building's official opening, by Sir John Bond, taking place on 2 April 2003.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: In April 2007, HSBC Tower was sold to Spanish property company Metrovacesa, becoming the first building in Britain to be sold for more than £1bn. As part of the sale, HSBC retained occupancy control and agreed a 20-year lease at a cost of £43.5m per annum.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: In December 2008, after Metrovacesa encountered problems with re-financing the bridging loan that HSBC had provided it and as part of a wider debt restructure for Metrovacesa, the bank bought back the property. HSBC stated it had made a £250m profit on the deal.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: In November 2009, HSBC once again sold the building, this time to the National Pension Service ("NPS"), the public pension fund for South Korea. HSBC's income statement on completion declared a gain of approximately £350million resulting from the transaction.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: In December 2014, Qatar Investment Authority completed the purchase of this building at an undisclosed price, but the building was expected to fetch more than £1.1 billion (US$1.73 billion). NPS was advised by the estate agents Jones Lang LaSalle and GM Real Estate.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: 8 Canada Square has a pair of bronze lions guarding the main entrance. These are copies of a pair nicknamed "Stephen" and "Stitt" which have stood outside the Bank's Headquarters at 1 Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong since 1935. The Hong Kong lions are named after yet another pair of lions that guarded the Bank's Shanghai headquarters on The Bund after it opened in 1923.


title: 8 Canada Square

text: The lions were cast within sight of the development by the Bronze Age Sculpture Casting Foundry in Limehouse.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: An aircraft canopy is the transparent enclosure over the cockpit of some types of aircraft. An aircraft canopy provides a controlled and sometimes pressurized environment for the aircraft's occupants, and allows for a greater field of view over a traditional flight deck. A canopy's shape is a compromise designed to minimize aerodynamic drag, while maximizing visibility for pilots and other crewmembers.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: Very early aircraft had no canopies. The pilots were exposed to the wind and weather, although most flying was done in good weather. Through World War I most aircraft had no canopy, although they often had a small windshield to deflect the prop wash and wind from hitting the pilot in the face. In the 1920s and 1930s, the increasing speed and altitude of airplanes necessitated a fully enclosed cockpit and canopies became more common.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: Early canopies were made of numerous pieces of flat glass held in position by a frame and muntins. The muntins reduced visibility, which was especially awkward for military aircraft. Also, glass canopies were much heavier than acrylic canopies, which were first introduced shortly before the Second World War. The acrylic bubble canopy was used on aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire and Westland Whirlwind, which gave better all-round visibility and reduced weight. It is still being used on most fighter aircraft.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: In the 1970s, US aviation artist Keith Ferris invented a "false canopy" to paint on the underside of military aircraft, directly underneath the front of the plane, the purpose of which was to camouflage the direction the aircraft is heading. This ruse was inspired by animals and fishes that have similar markings on the head and tail, so they can confuse other creatures. Pilots remain skeptical of this feature, asserting that if the enemy is close enough to see the marking, they are too close to be fooled by it.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: On many high-performance military aircraft, the canopy is an integral part of the ejection seat system. The pilot cannot be ejected from the aircraft until the canopy is no longer in the path of the ejection seat. In most ejection seat equipped aircraft, the canopy is blown upwards and rearwards by explosive charges. The relative wind then blows the canopy away from the ejection path. However, on some aircraft, such as the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II, the pilot may be forced to eject when in a hover, or when going too slow for the relative wind to move the canopy out of the path of the ejection seat. In that situation, the pilot could possibly impact the canopy when ejecting. To overcome that possibility, some aircraft have a thin cord of plastic explosive zig-zagging across the canopy over the pilot's head. In the event of an ejection, the explosive cord is activated first, shattering the canopy. Then the ejection seat and pilot is launched through the shattered canopy.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: Most modern acrylic canopies are vacuum formed. A sheet of acrylic is secured to a female mould, then the entire assembly is heated in an oven until the acrylic is pliable. The air is then removed from the mould and the acrylic sheet is drawn into it, forming the shape of the canopy. The acrylic is then trimmed to the appropriate shape and attached to an aluminum or composite frame. Some one-off canopies are made in a similar fashion, but since a mould would be too time-consuming to make, the acrylic is heated and vacuum formed until it approximates the shape the builder is seeking. This type of construction is less precise, however, and each canopy is unique. If multiple canopies will be needed, a mould is almost always used.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: Have Glass is the code name for a series of RCS reduction measures for the F-16 fighter. Its primary aspect is the addition of an indium-tin-oxide layer to the gold tinted cockpit canopy, which is reflective to radar frequencies. An ordinary canopy would let radar signals straight through where they would strike the many edges and corners inside and bounce back strongly to the radar source; the reflective layer dissipates these signals instead. Overall, Have Glass reduces an F-16's RCS (radar-cross section) by 15 percent. The gold tint also reduces glare from the sun to improve visibility for the pilot.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: The Malcolm Hood is a type of aircraft canopy originally developed for the Supermarine Spitfire. Its concept proved valuable for other aircraft such as the North American Aviation-produced P-51B & C Mustangs as retrofit items, and standard on later versions of the Vought F4U Corsair, and somewhat emulated on the later models of the "Luftwaffe's" Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter. The canopy was manufactured by the British company R Malcolm & Co which gave its name. Instead of taking a straight line between the canopy frames, the hood was bulged outward. This gave the pilot a better view to the rear.


title: Aircraft canopy

text: ...the Corsair's initial deficiencies were being worked out on a concurrent basis... The 689th production F4U-1 featured a number of significant changes. The most noticeable was that the cockpit was raised to improve the pilot's forward view, and a bulged canopy, along the lines of the "Malcolm Hood" used on Spitfires, replaced the original "birdcage" framed canopy to provide better all-round field of view.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: The musicians of the RMS "Titanic" all perished when the ship sank in 1912. They played music, intending to calm the passengers, for as long as they possibly could, and all went down with the ship. All of the men were recognized for their heroism, especially during the final hours of the sinking.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: The 's eight musicians – members of a three-piece ensemble and a five-piece ensemble – were booked through C.W. & F.N. Black, in Liverpool. They boarded at Southampton and traveled as second-class passengers. They were not on the White Star Line's payroll but were contracted to White Star by the Liverpool firm of C.W. & F.N. Black, who placed musicians on almost all British liners. Until the night of the sinking, the players performed as two separate groups: a quintet led by violinist and official bandleader Wallace Hartley, that played at teatime, after-dinner concerts, and Sunday services, among other occasions; and the violin, cello, and piano trio of Georges Krins, Roger Bricoux, and Theodore Brailey, that played at the À La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: After the "Titanic" hit an iceberg and began to sink, Hartley and his fellow band members started playing music to help keep the passengers calm as the crew loaded the lifeboats. Many of the survivors said that Hartley and the band continued to play until the very end. Reportedly, their final tune was the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee". One second-class passenger said: All eight musicians died in the sinking.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: William Theodore Ronald Brailey (25 October 1887 – 15 April 1912) was an English pianist. Born on 25 October 1887 in Walthamstow in Greater London (then part of Essex), he was the son of William "Ronald" Brailey, a well-known figure of Spiritualism. Brailey studied piano at school, and one of his first jobs was performing in a local hotel.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: In 1902, he joined the Royal Lancashire Fusiliers regiment signing for 12 years service as a musician. He was stationed in Barbados but left the army prematurely in 1907. He returned to England and lived at 71 Lancaster Road, Ladbroke Grove, London. In 1911, he enlisted aboard ship, playing first on the , prior to joining the Cunard steamer in 1912, where he met the French cellist Roger Bricoux. Both men then joined the White Star Line and were recruited by Liverpool music agency C.W. and F.N. Black to serve on the "Titanic". Brailey boarded the "Titanic" on Wednesday 10 April 1912 in Southampton. His ticket number was 250654, the ticket for all the members of Hartley's orchestra. His cabin was in the second class quarters.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Roger Marie Bricoux (1 June 1891 – 15 April 1912) was a French cellist. Born on 1 June 1891 in Rue de Donzy, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, France, Bricoux was the son of a musician. The family moved to Monaco when he was a young boy, and he was educated in various Catholic institutions in Italy. It was during his studies that he joined his first orchestra and won first prize at the Conservatory of Bologna for musical ability. After studying at the Paris Conservatory, he moved to England in 1910 to join the orchestra in the Grand Central Hotel in Leeds. At the end of 1911, he moved to Lille, France, lived at 5 Place du Lion d'Or, and played in various locations throughout the city.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Before joining the "Titanic", Bricoux had served with Brailey had served on the Cunard steamer "Carpathia" before joining the White Star Line. He boarded the "Titanic" on Wednesday 10 April 1912 in Southampton. His ticket number was 250654, the ticket for all the members of Hartley's orchestra. His cabin was second class, and he was the only French musician aboard the "Titanic".


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: In 1913, after his apparent disappearance, he was declared a deserter by the French army. It was not until 2000 that he was eventually officially registered as dead in France, mainly due to the efforts of the Association Française du Titanic. On 2 November 2000, the same association unveiled a memorial plaque to Bricoux in Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Wallace Henry Hartley (2 June 1878 – 15 April 1912), an English violinist, was the bandleader on the "Titanic". Hartley's body was recovered by the CS "Mackay-Bennett", before being returned to England for burial in his home town of Colne, Lancashire.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: John Law "Jock" Hume (9 August 1890 – 15 April 1912) was a Scottish violinist. Hume was born on 9 August 1890 in Dumfries, Scotland and lived with his parents at 42 George Street, Dumfries. He had already played on at least five ships before the "Titanic", and was recruited to play on its maiden voyage due to his good reputation as a musician.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: He boarded the "Titanic" on Wednesday 10 April 1912 in Southampton. His ticket number was 250654, the ticket for all the members of Hartley's orchestra. His cabin was in the second class quarters.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Hume was 21 years old when he died and his fiancée, Mary Costin, was pregnant with his child. His body was recovered by the CS "Mackay-Bennett", and was passed into the care of John Henry Barnstead who arranged for his burial in grave 193 of the designated Titanic plot at Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on 8 May 1912. A memorial was erected for Hume and Thomas Mullin (third class steward) in Dock Park, Dumfries. It reads:


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Hume and the other members of Hartley's orchestra all belonged to the Amalgamated British Musicians Union and were employed by a Liverpool music agency, C.W. and F.N. Black, which supplied musicians for Cunard and the White Star Line. On 30 April 1912, Hume's father, Andrew, received the following note from the agency:


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: The letter caused controversy at the time when it was reprinted in the Amalgamated Musicians Union's monthly newsletter. Andrew Law Hume decided not to settle the bill.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: In April 1914 John W. Furness, the violinist of the Canadian liner made a pilgrimage with Anglican Church officials to visit the grave of John Law Hume at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery and pay his respects. Furness himself died in a shipwreck only a few weeks later when "Empress of Ireland" sank on 29 May 1914.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: Georges Alexandre Krins (18 March 1889 – 15 April 1912) was a Belgian violinist. Born on 18 March 1889 in Paris, France, his family was from Belgium, and soon after his birth they moved back there to the town of Spa. He first studied at Academie de Musique de Spa. He then moved to the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium, where he studied from 30 October 1902 until 1908, when he won first prize for violin, with the highest distinction.


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: As a young man he wanted to join the army; however, his parents persuaded him otherwise. He worked in his father's shop and played in La Grande Symphonie, Spa, and in 1910 he moved to Paris to be first violin at Le Trianon Lyrique. He subsequently moved to London and played for two years at the Ritz Hotel until March 1912. He lived at 10 Villa Road, Brixton, London and became bandmaster of the Trio String Orchestra, which played near the Café Français. This led to his being recruited by CW & FN Black, Liverpool to play on the "Titanic".


title: Musicians of the Titanic

text: He boarded the "Titanic" on Wednesday 10 April 1912 in Southampton. His ticket number was 250654, the ticket for all the members of Hartley's orchestra. His cabin was second class, and he was the only Belgian musician aboard the "Titanic". After the "Titanic" began to sink, Krins and his fellow band members assembled in the first class lounge and started playing music to help keep the passengers calm. They later moved to the forward half of the boat deck, where they continued to play as the crew loaded the lifeboats. Krins was 23 years old when he died. His body was never recovered.


title: Martin Melcher

text: Martin Melcher (August 1, 1915 – April 20, 1968) was an American motion picture and music executive. He was married to popular singer and actress Doris Day, with whom he owned a series of business ventures named Arwin. Melcher produced several films in the 1950s and 1960s through the independent film production company Arwin Productions, released music through the record label Arwin Records, and published music through the music publishing companies Arwin Music and Daywin Music, Mart Music and Artists Music. He also was the president of Kirk Douglas' music publishing company, Peter Vincent Music.


title: Martin Melcher

text: Melcher was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, to Jewish parents Minnie (Gabriner) and Alter Melcher. He began his career as a song plugger while married to his first wife, singer Jane Rappaport, in New York. He then worked as an agent and road manager for the Andrews Sisters and married Patty Andrews on October 19, 1947. The couple divorced on March 30, 1950.


title: Martin Melcher

text: Melcher married Doris Day in 1951, and they formed their own production company, Arwin Productions, in 1952. All but one of Melcher's film projects were starring vehicles for Day. In 1959, Melcher and Day formed Arwin Productions subsidiaries Arwin Records, a record label, Arwin Music, Daywin Music, Mart Music and Artists Music, music publishing companies.