Intelsat 702 – Shutting Down

Intelsat made the following announcement today:

“Intelsat and IS-702 manufacturer Space System Loral have recommended that we maneuver IS-702 to sun acquisition immediately in order to avoid loss of control that would leave the satellite stranded.

Intelsat needs to move as fast as possible to minimize risk.

Today’s anomaly relates to a different subsystem than the March 23 anomaly, but at that time we began developing contingency plans to move customer services to alternate satellite capacity and we are now implementing that plan.

It is unfortunate but we have only a small time window to put the satellite in a safe position and we cannot extend more time to existing customers.”

SMS is working on supporting existing customers with an appropriate solution.