[Satellite TODAY 11-17-11] Intelsat 18 manufacturer Orbital Sciences has completed in-orbit testing on the satellite and has handed the spacecraft over to FSS operator Intelsat, the companies confirmed Nov. 15.

   Intelsat 18 was launched in early October aboard a Sea Launch Zenit rocket from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Orbital said a team of its engineers worked with Intelsat in conducting several weeks of orbit raising and testing operations to prepare the spacecraft for commercial service.

   “We are very pleased with how smoothly the post-launch operations of Intelsat 18 proceeded.  We have now turned over full operational control of the satellite to Intelsat and stand ready to support their operations over the next 15 years.  We are also continuing production and testing of Intelsat 23, the tenth Orbital-built satellite that will join the Intelsat fleet in 2012,” Orbital’s Senior Vice President of its Space Systems Group Christopher Richmond said in a statement.

   Intelsat 18 is located at the 180 degrees East orbital slot, where it aims to provide C-band communications services to eastern Asia, the Pacific and the western United States, and Ku-band communications services to French Polynesia, New Caledonia, eastern Australia and the United States.