Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] completed final testing on the SES New Skies NSS-9 commercial communications satellite, the company announced.

The engineering team completed pre-shipment procedures for the satellite, which will be stored at the company’s Dulles, Va., facilities until the company is notified of the launch date.

NSS-9 was designed, manufactured and tested in approximately 22 months from the start of the contract to completion of the pre-shipment review.

Based on the Orbital STAR-2 satellite bus, NSS-9 carries 28 active C-band transponders and features three beams that can be interconnected on a transponder-by-transponder basis:

• A global beam providing coverage of the entire earth visible from its 183 degrees East longitude orbit slot
• Another beam covering Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, China, Korea and the Pacific Islands
• A third beam providing coverage and connectivity to the U.S., Hawaii and Polynesia.

Orbital said it is doing well in its geosynchronous-orbit (GEO) commercial communication business, with four new orders so far this year, including the AMC-1R satellite for SES Americom, the Koreasat-6 satellite for KT Corporation (in partnership with Thales Alenia Space), and the IS-18 satellite for Intelsat.

Excluding NSS-9, Orbital currently has ten other commercial communications satellites in various stages of design and production for launches between 2009 and 2010. Two other Orbital-built GEO satellites were launched this year, THOR 5 for Telenor of Norway and AMC-21, the first of five satellites ordered by SES Americom