Intelsat satellite stops communication

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 24 September 2006 17:05

IT Industry - Strategy

Intelsat IS-802 satellite, which provides telecommunications services to customers on the African continent and in the Indian Ocean Region, has ''experienced sudden and unexpected anomaly" forcing Intelsat to reroute its traffic onto other satellites.

• Announcements

The good news is that Intelsat's control centre can communicate with and control the satellite, which was manufactured by Lockheed Martin and launched in 1997.

Intelsat says it is making alternative capacity available on other satellites to users of IS-802 and is working with Lockheed Martin to identify the cause of the problem. Intelsat  says it does not know if there is a connection between the failure and the failure of the Intelsat 804 satellite, also manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which occurred in January 2005.

The IS-802 is not insured, in accordance with Intelsat's practice of self insuring satellites that are beyond the initial year of operations.