Intelsat Ltd. attributed the January failure of the Intelsat 804 satellite to a design problem with the satellite platform, Intelsat said in its second quarter 2005 financial release.

The IS-804 satellite went dark in January and Intelsat recorded a $69.2 million charge in its first quarter 2005 to write-off the value of the spacecraft. Intelsat said that, while the failure review board (FRB) established by Intelsat and satellite manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. is not expected to complete its work until the end of September, the most likely cause of the failure was a design flaw in the 7000 series platform.

“The IS-804 failure is not likely to have been caused by an IS-804 specific workmanship or hardware element, but is more likely related to the LM 7000 Series design under certain operational and environmental conditions,” Intelsat said. “The FRB’s analysis is expected to include an assessment of the overall risk level for our other LM 7000 series satellites, and a determination of whether any operational steps can be taken to mitigate the risk.”

Intelsat operates three more satellites, IS-801, IS-802 and IS-805, based on the 7000 series’ design.

Lockheed Martin has notified operators of satellites based on the 7000 platform, including New Skies Satellites and Echostar, of the preliminary findings, said Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Manor.

New Skies, which operates a pair of 7000 series satellites, the NSS-803 – operated jointly with Intelsat – and the NSS 806, cautioned against overreacting to the findings.

“At this point, Lockheed Martin has not completed its investigation and it is premature for us to speculate on what conclusions it will reach,” Stephen Stott, News Skies chief technology officer, said in a statement. “Lockheed Martin is evaluating system design issues that could cause a failure under certain environmental and operational conditions. However, it has not isolated the root cause of the Intelsat satellite failure or the probability of such cause reoccurring on other satellites of the same series. As a result, Lockheed Martin has not yet determined to what extent other satellites of the same series face an increased risk of failure or whether operating procedures should be implemented to mitigate, in whole or in part, any such risk.”

For more on this developing story, please see the Aug. 15 issue of Satellite News. For more information on subscribing to Access Intelligence’s satellite industry news and information products, please visit us on the Web at https://www.satellitetoday.com.