Preliminary analysis from a failure review board (FRB) examining the January Intelsat IS-804 failure suggests root cause of the failure is note unique to this satellite. Instead, there could be a design issue with the entire 7000 series of spacecraft.

If it ends up being a larger problem, it could have a significant impact on New Skies Satellites Holding Ltd., Echostar Communications Corp. and Asiasat which operate 7000 series spacecraft

The preliminary analysis was made public Aug. 11 in a disclosure in Intelsat’s second quarter 2005 earnings report. “While the FRB is not expected to complete its analysis until the end of September, we currently believe, based on the FRB’s analysis to date, that 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.”

The report did not offer specific details on what those “operational and environmental conditions” might be, but Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Manor told Satellite News that the FRB is looking at factors such as solar activity, charging environment and the changing of the satellite configuration over time based on the day-to-day operation of the spacecraft. “Those are things we are looking at and what impact they would have on 804 and the fleet,” he said, adding that the investigation, while taking into consideration the rest of the 7000 series fleet, is still focused on determining the root cause of the IS-804 failure, which occurred Jan. 14 (SN, Jan. 24).

While Intelsat’s quarterly earnings was the first time the findings were made public, Manor said all satellite operators that have 7000 series spacecraft in their fleets have been kept up-to-date on the FRB’s analysis.

New Skies Reacts

Of the operators that have the 7000 series satellites in their fleets, only New Skies has issued a public statement regarding the release of the findings, a statement that on the surface appears designed to calm any potential concerns investors might have. Two of New Skies’ six satellites (NSS-5 and NSS-806) are 7000 series spacecraft.

In an Aug. 11 statement, New Skies Chief Technology Officer Stephen Stott said, “It is premature for us to speculate on what conclusions [the FRB] will reach. Lockheed Martin is evaluating system design issues that could cause a failure under certain environment 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 in increased risk of failure or whether operating procedures should be implemented to mitigate, in whole or in part, any such risk.”

Like New Skies, Echostar has two satellites in its fleet that are of the 7000 series variety, Echostar-1 and Echostar-2. Steve Caulk, Echostar spokesman, told Satellite News, “We are not going to comment on [the 804 failure] until we have a chance to look at the entire report.”

Questions submitted to Asiasat and New Skies regarding the Intelsat disclosure were not returned as this issue went to press.

How Big Are The Risks?

Whether other 7000 series satellites will follow the path of IS-804 is hard to determine based on the little information that has been made public, but it would appear on the surface that Intelsat is in the best position among operators with 7000 series satellites to deal with any future failures, based on the size of its fleet.

“As of now, [the FRB thinks] the risk is low” of another satellite in the series will experience an anomaly, Intelsat spokeswoman Jodi Katz told Satellite News. “That being said, there are three satellites in our fleet (IS-801, IS-802 and IS-805) that are of the same series. We have sufficient capacity in our system so that if, God forbid, one of those remaining satellites was to experience an anomaly, we would already have sufficient capacity to restore people on other satellites.”

Katz also noted that the FRB is trying to determine if any operational steps can be taken to further reduce the risk of something happening, but “until they know what caused the 804 anomaly in the first place, you can’t come up with solution to the problem.”

New Skies and Asiasat might not fare as well if the worst case scenario comes to pass.

For New Skies, the loss of NSS-5 could be significant. According to the company’s Web site, “NSS-5 is New Skies’ principal connectivity satellite for the Pacific Ocean Region. Located at the prime orbital location of 183 degrees East, NSS-5 is one of the few satellites that can connect North America with all major destinations in the Pacific Rim.” New Skies does not have another satellite in its fleet that mirrors that coverage area, though other satellites do serve that region in some capacity. NSS-806, located at 319.5 degrees East, covers the Latin American and European markets, which also are served by the company’s IS-603 spacecraft.

Asiasat could also face difficulties if the Asiasat-2 satellite, one of only three in the company’s fleet, is lost. The satellite, located at 100.5 degrees East, covers 53 countries in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. it’s the company’s other two satellites offer similar coverage, but Asiasat 2 is a significant part of Asiasat’s offering, as many of its latest content deals, including the most recent announcement of carrying Real Madrid TV, are linked to carriage on Asiasat 2.

The effect of a worst case scenario on Echostar is a bit harder to judge. The company, which offers direct-to-home satellite television services through its Dish Network brand, has a total of nine satellites, and Echostar-1 and -2 are the oldest in the fleet. Both satellites are located at 148 degrees West.

Echostar has “a pretty substantial fleet these days,” giving the company a lot more flexibility, Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman and senior research analyst of The Carmel Group, told Satellite News. “But at the same time, you have to realize that right now Echostar is scrambling in its competition against DirecTV to launch more birds so it has more bandwidth and can deliver the HDTV local channels. This is not good news. This is not something they need in any fashion and is not something that is going to help the company.”

However, Schaeffler was quick to add that any negative effect at this time is pure speculation. “The bottom line is you need more data to determine if it is going to be bad and determine how bad it is going to be,” he said. “It might be something that is repairable. It might be something where software download either corrects or manages [any problem]. It is so hard to really identify the issue without having more data.”

A Late-Life Failure Trend?

In looking at the IS-804 failure and some other recent satellite anomalies, a potentially unsettling trend could be developing -the failure of all or parts of a satellite around or near the midpoint of the satellite’s expected in-orbit life. In previous generations of spacecraft, problems tended to arise early in the satellite’s operational life.

“It seems that we are experiencing satellite problems over the past decade that are longer in coming to the surface than in the past,” Roger Rusch, president of Telastra Inc. “There used to be the belief that if there were design difficulties or generic defects in satellites, they would surface in the first year after launch. Now we see a number of cases where a satellite will operate in orbit for three to seven years before we see any evidence of a problem and then some significant life-limiting problem surface.”

Some recent problems that occurred outside of the first year of in-orbit service include the anomaly that temporarily knocked out the Intelsat Americas-7 satellite, launched in September 1999, in November; the problems with the Galaxy 10R xenon-ion propulsion system that surfaced in August 2004, more than four years after the satellite was launched; and the Telstar 402-R (later renamed Telstar 4), a 7000 series satellite that was a total loss after a short circuit in the primary power bus in 2003 after being in orbit since September 1995.

While satellites are starting to show more anomalies years into their in-orbit life, it could be difficult to protect systems against such failures.

“It is difficult to know if there is a good way to get around that,” Rusch noted. “Normally, the industry tries to develop life tests for various components on satellites, but it is difficult to have accelerated life tests. If you know the problem is due to cycling, you might be able to catch it. But if it is a defect that is simply aging related, it is much more difficult to know what to do. It seems that whatever it is, we don’t fully understand how to do accelerated life tests to sufficiently flesh out some of these problems that have surfaced.”

But the lack of accurate life testing is not the only contributing factor.

“A number of problems I have seen over the past decade have been careless errors,” Rusch said. “There have been workmanship defects or there have been negligence-of-the-process kinds of difficulties. It wasn’t a lack of knowledge. Satellites have been dropped.”

–Gregory Twachtman

(Jimmy Schaeffler, The Carmel Group, 831/643-2222; Jodi Katz, Intelsat, 202/944-8223; Chip Miller, Lockheed Martin, 408/742-3397; Roger Rusch, Telastra, 310/373-1925)