[Satellite Today 05-21-09] Inmarsat has chosen Arianespace to launch the Alphasat I-XL communications satellite in 2012, Arianespace announced May 20.
The deal follows an agreement between Inmarsat and the European Space Agency (ESA) to cooperate on the commercialization of the first mission to use the new European platform, Alphabus.
     Alphasat I-XL will be built by Astrium using an Alphabus platform, and will be positioned at 25 degrees East, joining Inmarsat’s current fleet of 11 geostationary satellites providng mobile voice and data communications services across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
    Separately, Arianespace announced it has reached agreement with ViaSat on a renegotiation of its launch services agreement that will secure launch capability for the ViaSat-1 satellite should International Launch Services (ILS), contracted to launch ViaSat-1 in 2011, not be able to provide service.
    Both ViaSat and ILS said that they expect no problems with the ViaSat-1 mission.