“I’m honored to receive this award from AIAA,” said Mr. Dankberg. “It’s a reflection of the hard work, creativity and contributions that all of our employees have made to ViaSat and the aerospace industry as a whole. We thrive on innovation and especially appreciate being recognized in this way by the AIAA.”

Mr. Dankberg is a co-founder of ViaSat and has served as Chairman and CEO since inception. ViaSat has a history of more than 20 years in technology leadership and innovation in the satellite and aerospace industry. The company has played a principal role in developing several key technologies:

Demand Assigned Multiple Access networking standards, network management, and subscriber terminals
Software defined radios and modems; anti-jam tactical data links
High Assurance Internet Protocol Encryption (HAIPE) standards and equipment
Dynamic Bandwidth Resource Allocation
Internet Router In Space on-board modem processing
Application of spread spectrum Ku-band to broadband for aviation, maritime, and land mobile services
Ground Based Beam Forming (GBBF) for Mobile Satellite Services
Development of new open standards for defense satellite & terrestrial communication systems at UHF, L, X, Ku and Ka-bands
Creating the network, system, modem, and RF technology needed to open the Ka-band to mass market two-way communication services.
Now ViaSat is working with partners Loral Space and Communications, Telesat, and Eutelsat to develop space and ground technology that can transform the satellite industry’s ability to deliver cost-effective broadband services. Its ViaSat-1 satellite will host payloads serving the U.S. and Canada and deliver over 100 Gbps of two-way broadband connectivity. ViaSat is also developing next generation ground networking equipment that will serve North American and European markets with unprecedented consumer-priced access speeds and bandwidth volumes. Together, the space and ground systems provide more than an order of magnitude in improvement in data throughput compared to current state-of-the-art satellites.

Mr. Dankberg will receive the award during the June 11, 2008 awards luncheon in conjunction with the 26th AIAA International Communications Satellite Systems Conference (ICSSC) at the Marriott Hotel and Marina in San Diego California.

Headquartered in suburban Washington, DC, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) (www.aiaa.org) serves over 35,000 members in 65 regional sections and 79 countries. AIAA membership is drawn from all levels of industry, academia, private research organizations, and government and focuses on emerging technologies in aviation, space and defense. For information on the AIAA Honors and Awards Program, contact Carol Stewart at 703/564-7623.

About ViaSat

ViaSat produces innovative satellite and other digital communication products that enable fast, secure, and efficient communications to any location. The company provides networking products and managed network services for enterprise IP applications; is a key supplier of network-centric military communications and encryption technologies to the U.S. government; and is the primary technology partner for gateway and customer-premises equipment for consumer and mobile satellite broadband services. The company has five subsidiaries: US Monolithics, Efficient Channel Coding, Enerdyne Technologies, Intelligent Compression Technologies and JAST. These companies design and produce complementary products such as monolithic microwave integrated circuits, DVB-S2 satellite communication components, video data link systems, data acceleration and compression products, and mobile satellite antenna systems. ViaSat has locations in Carlsbad, CA, and Duluth, GA, along with its Comsat Laboratories division in Germantown, MD. Additional field offices are located in Boston, MA, Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, Australia, China, India, Italy, and Spain.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are entitled to the protection of the safe harbor contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the industries in which ViaSat operates and the beliefs and assumptions of ViaSat. In this press release, these forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding the performance of the ViaSat-1 satellite; and the anticipated benefits of the satellite project. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Accordingly, actual results could differ materially from those expressed in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, the ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the ViaSat-1 satellite; pricing pressures and actions taken by competitors; satellite failures or degradations in satellite performance; difficulties in obtaining regulatory approvals; and unexpected expenses related to the project described herein. In addition, please refer to the risk factors contained in ViaSat’s SEC filings available at www.sec.gov, including without limitation, ViaSat’s annual reports on Form 10-K and ViaSat’s quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. ViaSat undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason.

Comsat Labs and Comsat Laboratories are tradenames of ViaSat, Inc. Neither Comsat Labs nor Comsat Laboratories is affiliated with COMSAT Corporation. “Comsat” is a registered trademark of COMSAT Corporation. All additional products are trademarks of their respective owners.

Phoenix, which traveled more than 400 million miles before making a flawless descent and landing on the northern surface of Mars, will use sophisticated instruments to analyze features of the Red Planet, searching especially for ice and the possibility that it once flowed as water, perhaps bearing some forms of life.

Phoenix is part of the larger picture of American and international space exploration in the 21st century. The mission is truly an international effort. The United States had many partners in the Phoenix project: the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; the European Space Agency; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The goals of returning astronauts to the moon and sending them on to Mars involve new rocket propulsion systems that will be tested and partially developed at the Stennis Space Center’s sprawling reservation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

A new rocket – Ares – is part of the project called Constellation, and by 2020 American astronauts could be on the moon again for the first time since 1972, carried by a spacecraft named Orion, designed for four crew members.

The Stennis flight center, since 1961, has been the gateway for manned exploration. The Apollo mission rocket engines that lifted astronauts into orbit on the first leg of the earlier journeys to the moon came through the 13,500-acre center and its 125,500-acre sound-absorbing perimeter.

None of the Apollo space vehicles failed.

Later, Stennis was the essential testing ground for the space shuttle’s main booster engines, and all the engines used to on the shuttles are first certified at Stennis.

In addition, Stennis has grown to house 30 other scientific agencies, including the Navy’s oceanographic research. About 20,000 people depend directly and indirectly on activites at Stennis for their jobs.

Its highest-profile work continues in space technology.

Earlier this month, NASA engineers successfully completed the first series of tests of the J-2X engine that eventually will power the upper stages of the Ares I and Ares V rockets. Ares I will launch the Orion, taking astronauts to the International Space Station and on to the moon, by 2020. The Ares V will lift compoents into orbit for those trips to the moon – and later to Mars.

The Phoenix mission is part of the preparation for the Ares/Orion/Constellation project by researching important issues:

- Study the history of water in the Martian arctic.

- Search for evidence of a habitable zone and assessing biological potential of the ice-soil layers.

Both studies will pave the way for human Mars exploration.

The annual $550 million economic impact of Stennis is assured as the Constellation project moves forward, and scores of additional shuttle engine tests are planned before the phase-out of the shuttle begins in 2010.

The Constellation project embraces two new “launch vehicles” – Ares I, which will take a crew to low-earth orbit then, Ares V will deliver an “earth departure stage,” and then the joined vehicles will go to the moon.

But first, the rocket engines make a stop in Mississippi.

The International Space Station, a research facility currently being assembled in space, is in a low Earth orbit and can be seen from several Basque cities with the naked eye.

Residents in Bilbao or visitors at the Basque city will be able to see the space station as a steady white pinpoint of light moving slowly across the sky on Saturday at 10:07 pm for five minutes and at 11:45 pm for 2 minutes. On Sunday, it will be visible once again at 10:29 for 5 more minutes.

In Vitoria-Gasteiz, the ISS will also be seen with the naked eye from Saturday to Monday. People in other places in the Basque Country will also be able to see the ISS following NASA’s satellite’s sighting information or Skywatch applet.

The ISS, a joint project among the NASA, RKA, JAXA, CSA and ESA space agencies, has an altitude of approximately 350 km above the surface of the Earth and travels at an average speed of 27,700 km.

The projected completion date is 2010, with the station remaining in operation until around 2016. As of 2008, the ISS is already larger than any previous space station. The ISS has been continuously inhabited since the first resident crew entered the station on November 2, 2000. At present the station has a capacity for a crew of three.

The ballistic reentry mode is a backup mode that takes over from the normal mode when something fails onboard the Soyuz capsule during entry back into Earth atmosphere.

Soyuz TMA-10 landed on October 21, 2007, about 211 miles (340 kilometers) northwest of its intended landing site in Kazakhstan. A Russian commission determined, at that time, that a damaged cable on the Soyuz control panel failed with regards to the capsule’s descent equipment. However, other unidentified problems may also be present—especially with regards to the result of the next Soyuz flight.

Later, Soyuz TMA-11 landed on April 19, 2008, after its computer switched to its ballistic reentry mode instead of the nominal mode. It landed 295 miles (475 kilometers) away from its intended landing point.

The crew was reported to have been shaken up from the ordeal. Later, Korean spaceflight participant Yi So-Yeon, the country’s first person in space, was admitted to a hospital after complaining of back pain. The other two crew members were RSA cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson.

Russian space officials commented that the capsule may have incorrectly entered Earth’s atmosphere hatch first, which resulted in damage to the capsule, especially to its hatch and antenna. Media reports have been circulating that the three-member crew of TMA-11 could have likely been killed from their incorrect orientation and steep descent into the atmosphere of Earth.

Thus, based on these last two Soyuz hard landings, NASA officials are concerned that the Soyuz capsule may not be safe enough to return its astronauts from the International Space Station at the end of their stay in space. In addition, the Soyuz capsule can also be used by all crewmembers on board the space station in case an emergency happens and they need to immediately evacuate and come home.

What might NASA do? Please read on.

The first mission that was aimed at this failed in 1999 after contact was lost during the landing procedure. In 2003, Beagle 2, the European Space Agency’s mission that was looking for proof of life, had the same fate.

The odds of landing this mission are not good. 55 percent of the attempts to land on Mars have failed, and the steering rockets that are used by the mission in order to have a more precise landing are part of a method that hasn’t been used for 32 years. The propulsive landing system is considered to offer better landing results for spacecrafts that are heavier, such as the ones that could be used if a human mission would be sent to the planet.

The scientists are mostly afraid of the 7-minute period of time while the Lander will be steering through Mars’s atmosphere in order to land in an area about two times larger that Hong Kong, located near the planet’s North Pole.

After the landing, Phoenix will use its robotic arm in order to retrieve samples of soil and ice from the planet’s surface. The samples will then be analyzed using its small ovens and spectrometers.

Scientists say that even if the mission is not aimed at finding life on the planet, the results of the ice analysis might point in the direction of whether life is or was ever possible on Mars.