2946-06-27- Sponsor Message: Announcement from Kosseler Shipbuilding

Thanks again to Kosseler Shipbuilding for being a sponsor both of the vidcast program and of the new text feed content. I hope that, if you are in the market for a new ship, you'll consider what Kosseler products have to offer.

We're hoping to introduce a second sponsor to the text feed soon - a sponsor who has not worked with the vidcast program. I can't say any more until the deal is final.

We here at Kosseler Shipbuilding would like to announce a new product and a special offer on this product for the Cosmic Background audience.

One of the main concerns potential customers raise to Kosseler representatives is that most Kosseler products contain non-owner-serviceable components. While we stand behind the value added by these extremely sophisticated components to the high standards of performance, comfort, and durability that have been our goal for almost six decades, we also know that for explorers and other frontier-bound interstellar professionals, the ability to service one's own spacecraft in even the tiniest detail is a hard requirement for any major purchase.

Here at Kosseler Shipbuilding, we've been working on a way to solve this problem for the better part of a decade, but with the pace of the Coreward Frontier's expansion we've seen in recent years, this effort has been given added urgency. After all, this isn't just a problem for potential new owners - spacers who've owned Kosseler ships in the Core Worlds for years are increasingly finding themselves drawn out to the frontier, where Kosseler repair facilities are difficult to find.

Today, we're announcing the release of the first stage of the solution to this problem. In addition to constructing a full Kosseler service yard at Maribel, which will be opening for limited business sometime in October, Kosseler ship-owners can now purchase Kosseler Repair Units, which contains a small swarm of the same nanomachines used in our repair centers and the equipment to control and direct it. These relatively inexpensive, disposable nanoswarms are designed to be small, light, and reliable, requiring only limited management by the ship-owner or a designated technician. A KRU will be able to diagnose, repair, and rebuild almost any of the non-user-serviceable parts on a top of the line Kosseler spacecraft, given the availability of raw materials. Because this new product is based on the same technology used in our repair yards, proper use of a KRU will be indistinguishable from having your vessel serviced in one of our facilities.

As many of you know, Kosseler has resisted public access to its nanotech-based repair technology for many years. There are of course safety concerns when any smart nanoswarm is deployed. A KRU's nanomachines become inert one full shift after they're activated, to limit risks; like the unit itself, the swarm is single-use and disposable.

Cosmic Background audience members who own a Kosseler spacecraft are entitled to one free KRU. This is currently the only reliable way to acquire a KRU in the Core Worlds - most of these items will be sent to distribution centers on the largest Frontier outposts, where they will be available for a reasonable fee to the ship-owners who are most likely to need them.

Once production has stabilized, we expect that KRUs will be available for purchase at all Kosseler facilities.