Intelsat Ltd. announced that its IS-802 satellite, located at 33 degrees East, experienced a sudden and unexpected anomaly Sept. 21 at about 8:27 p.m. EDT. The Intelsat satellite control center has remained in control of the satellite, the company said.

The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and launched in 1997, furnishes telecommunications services to customers on the African continent and throughout the Indian Ocean region.

Intelsat and Lockheed Martin are seeking to identify the cause of the problem with the 7000 series satellite. Intelsat was uncertain whether the event had any connection to the January 2005 failure of Intelsat 804, also a Lockheed Martin 7000 series.

IS-802, which generates less than $30 million in revenues annually, was uninsured, as Intelsat’s self-insures spacecraft that are beyond the initial years of operations. The company is making alternative capacity available to customers and said it should be able to restore a substantial portion of the customer traffic using its existing satellites.