PANAMSAT SATELLITE HIT AGAIN BY SOLAR ANOMALY
PanAmSat’s Loral-built PAS-7 satellite is suffering from solar array anomaly that causes 25% reduction in power but will not affect any others in Loral’s fleet of FS 1300 satellites, Loral spokesman said: “At this point we believe it’s unique to that satellite… We are delaying the shipments of any other satellites until we conclude our investigation.”
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Anomaly marks 2nd incident in one week to affect PanAmSat’s satellites (CD Sept 28 p2). In unrelated solar anomaly, Galaxy 11 and PAS-1R, both Boeing 702 satellites, last week were hit with power degradation that they said would have long-term impact on satellites. Loral wouldn’t release results of any of its findings, but did say it was likely that power capacity of PAS-7 wouldn’t be degraded further. Spokesman declined to comment on whether satellite would regain 25% power it lost but said results of investigation most likely would be released with FCC filings in mid-Nov.
PanAmSat said: “Services for all customers on the company'’s PAS-7 Indian Ocean Region satellite have been unaffected by a technical difficulty with one of the spacecraft’s solar arrays.” Exec. Vp-Chief Technology Officer Robert Bednarek emphasized that satellite was expected to continue to serve existing customers: “We are committed to taking care of our customers on PAS-7… Fortunately, even with the power degradation on PAS-7, the satellite has more than enough power capacity remaining to serve all customers with a safe margin to spare for their services. We will continue to monitor the satellite closely to ensure it maintains the high performance standards… and we fully expect the satellite to continue to meet our customers needs for the foreseeable future.” PanAmSat has $250 million insurance on satellite, it said on Web site. Company made preliminary determination that event would constitute total constructive loss under policy, which for insurance purposes occurs when 20% or more of capacity on satellite is lost.
Loral has 20 FS 1300 satellites under construction, spokesman said. Only shipment of DirecTV 5 will be affected by investigation. DirecTV 5 was to be shipped last week and launched by International Launch Service on Proton rocket in Kazakstan in late Oct. DirecTV spokesman confirmed delay of launch, but said bird already had been delayed because reports indicated State Dept. had ceased shipment of satellite to Kazakstan because of its proximity to Afghanistan, where U.S. is thought to be focusing military efforts to bring to justice terrorists who attacked N.Y. and Washington. Spokesman also said company engineers continued to conduct tests on DirecTV 5, another reason for delay.
DirecTV 5 isn’t mission-critical satellite, DirecTV spokesman said: “DirecTV 5 will replace DirecTV 6 and will give us greater capacity.” DirecTV 6 will remain in orbit as backup. Both satellites, formerly named Tempo 1 and Tempo 2, were acquired by DirecTV when company bought Tempo assets from Primestar, spokesman said.