What's in this week's issue of Space News? Every Monday we post quick, concise summaries of the current issue's top stories.

The most recent smaller stories from all corners of the space community, collected in one convenient place.

PARIS — Satellite broadband service provider Hughes Communications expects to order a large, all-Ka-band satellite by September to complement capacity on the company's Spaceway 3 satellite serving consumers in the United States. The new satellite will take about 3.5 years to build and will not feature Spaceway 3's elaborate on-board processing technology, Hughes Chief Executive Pradman Kaul said Aug. 7.

PARIS — OHB Technology has entered the competitive bidding to build all 26 Galileo navigation and positioning satellites in direct competition with a consortium of Europe's two largest satellite prime contractors, Astrium Satellites and Thales Alenia Space, OHB Technology Chief Executive Marco R. Fuchs said Aug. 7.

PARIS — The European Commission Aug. 7 launched a competition to provide S-band mobile satellite services in Europe and set an Oct. 7 deadline for bids from industry.

WASHINGTON – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Chief Executive Elon Musk said Aug. 6 that a small timing error caused the first stage of the Falcon 1 rocket to bump into the second stage instead of falling harmlessly away during the vehicle's failed Aug. 2 launch, bringing the low-cost rocket's third attempt to reach orbit to a premature end.

PARIS — Inmarsat registered an 84 percent increase in the number of users of its BGAN high-speed land-mobile satellite service and said BGAN revenue more than doubled, to $33.4 million, in the six months ending June 30 compared to the same period a year earlier, the London-based company announced Aug. 6.

PARIS — Al Yah Satellite Communications Co. (Yahsat) has secured commitments for $1.2 billion, mainly in bank loans, to finance its two-satellite civil-military telecommunications system, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based Yahsat announced Aug. 6.

WASHINGTON — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Chief Executive Elon Musk recently accepted a $20 million investment from Founders Fund, a $220 million venture capital firm managed by his fellow PayPal co-founders.

PARIS — The French space agency, CNES, has concluded the sale of its 41 percent ownership in satellite Earth observation products company Spot Image to Astrium Services for 19 million euros ($29.6 million) in cash plus royalties on future sales from the Spot 5 satellite, which was financed by CNES and is currently in orbit, CNES officials said Aug. 5.

PARIS — Mobile satellite services fleet operator Iridium Satellite LLC has selected two finalists — Lockheed Martin of the United States and Thales Alenia Space of Europe — to compete to build Iridium's second-generation constellation of low-orbiting spacecraft. A decision on a winner will be made, and a contract signed, by mid-2009, Iridium announced Aug. 4.

PARIS — Satellite-fleet operator Eutelsat reported increased revenue and profit from its 24 satellites and said it expects annual revenue growth of 6 percent between now and 2011, when sales should surpass 1 billion euros ($1.55 billion), the company said July 31.