Almost all satellites experience some technical problems during their lifespan. But Aug 4 saw satellite giant SES formally declare that it was suffering similar solar panel power loss problems on some Lockheed Martin A2100 craft (pictured, left), specifically on a pair in use by SES Americom.
“To date, the power loss has caused a minor reduction in available
commercial capacity in two of these nine satellites (AMC-4 and AMC-16).
AMC-4 C-band customers have been transferred to AMC-2, which has been
co-located with AMC-4 at the 101 degrees West orbital position. The
AMC-16 satellite capacity reduction resulted in an adjustment to the
monthly revenue payments by the customer,” said an SES statement
released along with the company’s half-yearly financials.
The SES statement suggested that the problems are not contained, and
might get worse. “Together with Lockheed Martin, we have undertaken an
extensive assessment of the potential impact of solar array circuit
anomalies across the fleet. There is some potential for future
additional degradation, although the likelihood of this is difficult to
estimate. SES has in-orbit backup capacity for certain of these
satellites. If the observed solar array circuit degradation continues
at historical rates, over time we may need to switch off additional
payload on affected satellites or advance the procurement of
replacement satellites.”
By any measure this is bad news for Americom. While at Corporate HQ the
financial compensation problems might be resolved, it is always
difficult to adequately compensate clients for months, and in this
case, years of lower power and technical problems. Americom placed the
first-ever order for an A2100 satellite, AMC-1, which was launched in
September 1986. Since then more than 30 have been built by Lockheed
Martin, which must be a worry for its other satellite operating
clients. This client list includes SES subsidiary New Skies Satellite
and SES Astra, and in total SES operates nine A2100 satellites.
The information is also bad news for Lockheed Martin. It was only a
couple of years ago that the giant operation received an Award (from
Frost & Sullivan) for two years running for “satellite
reliability”, and specifically for the A2100 models. “Frost &
Sullivan concluded that the A2100 is the most reliable satellite now
available for a majority of satellite services,” said a statement at
the time.
L-M’s A2100 satellites are built at their Sunnyvale, California plant,
and besides SES, the company has been a regular supplier to Echostar,
ChinaStar, KoreaSat, Canada’s Telesat, Indonesia’s Telkom and others.
Almost all satellites experience some technical problems during their lifespan. But Aug 4 saw satellite giant SES formally declare that it was suffering similar solar panel power loss problems on some Lockheed Martin A2100 craft (pictured, left), specifically on a pair in use by SES Americom.
