Friday Intelsat announced it had regained control of the Intelsat Americas-7 (IA-7) satellite, which a week earlier had experienced a sudden and unexpected electrical distribution anomaly that caused the permanent loss of the spacecraft. (See last week's RF Report) Operations have been restored on some transponders, while testing continues.
In a press release, Intelsat said "The exact cause of the anomaly is still being investigated, in cooperation with Space Systems/Loral, the satellite's manufacturer, and Loral Skynet, each of whom participated in the recovery effort."
Conny Kullman, Chief Executive Officer of Intelsat, Ltd., commented, "Our first priority in this event was to address the needs of our existing customers and their end-users. As a global operator with 28 satellites in our network, Intelsat's overall flexibility and ability to match available capacity to customer requirements served us well in quickly providing alternate solutions. We are keeping Zeus Holdings Limited, Intelsat's prospective acquirer, fully apprised of developments as they occur with respect to the IA-7 satellite and we understand Zeus is continuing its evaluation of the situation."
