Orbital Sciences is celebrating a major contract award from SES Americom, Orbital announced May 8.
 
The company will build a replacement satellite, AMC-5R, plus a ground spare, with an option to add up to three more spacecraft per the contract. The two satellites are scheduled for delivery in mid- and late-2009, respectively.
 
Orbital will serve as the prime contractor for the new spacecraft, based on the most powerful version of its Star-2 satellite platform. AMC-5R and the identical ground spare will be hybrid satellites, each carrying 24 C-band and 24 Ku-band transponders. A portion of each frequency payload will be cross-strapped, allowing signals to be transmitted to the satellite in one frequency and received in the other.