Intelsat

Intelsat’s $4,870,000,000 eligibility is $13,600,000 higher than the FCC’s original plan and lower than the $5,800,000,000 to $6,500,000,000 the company sought.

Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle 1 launched in October 2019 and docked in orbit with an Intelsat communications satellite to extend the spacecraft's operation by five years.

Appaloosa purchased a 7% stake in Virginia- and Luxembourg-based Intelsat last month with the purpose of pushing Intelsat to seek a larger share of clearing payments.

Telesat and SES asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to reject Intelsat’s request for a larger share of $9,700,000,000 in incentive payments for C-band clearing.

Intelsat requested that the FCC increase its potential $4,850,000,000 share of the $9,700,000,000 to at least $5,800,000,000.

If the FCC maintains its original allocations, 50% of the incentive payments would go to Intelsat and 41% would go to SES, with the remaining 9% allocated to Eutelsat, Telesat, and Embratel Star One.

Intelsat argues that a 60–67% share of the incentive payments is more in line with the work it needs to do to clear its portion of C-band by the end of 2023.

SES and Telesat say the scope of work for clearing C-band has not changed since Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, and Telesat jointly commissioned a study as part of the C-Band Alliance in 2018.

Under the FCC proposal released 2020-02-07, Intelsat would be entitled to the largest share of the $9,700,000,000 in incentive payments.

A combined allocation of $7,500,000,000 or more to Intelsat and Eutelsat would reduce the shares available to SES and Telesat under the FCC plan.

Eutelsat requested that Intelsat receive 62.6% ($6,070,000,000) of the proposed incentive payments and that Eutelsat receive up to $1,470,000,000.

SES and Telesat released a joint letter on 2020-02-25 arguing that Intelsat’s justification for seeking more than a 50% share of the $9,700,000,000 is not valid.

MEV-1 used onboard electric propulsion to raise its orbit to match Intelsat-901’s orbit by 2020-02-01.

Northrop Grumman plans to move the MEV-1/Intelsat-901 stack into the geostationary arc so Intelsat-901 can resume service in late March 2020.

Northrop Grumman is building a second Mission Extension Vehicle for Intelsat that is on track to launch later in 2020.

MEV-1 completed in-orbit testing and paused 80 m from Intelsat-901 on 2020-02-24 during rendezvous operations.

Intelsat-901 will enter service at the 332.5 degrees east orbital slot using C-band transponders and steerable Ku-band beams to cover North and South America, Africa, and Europe.

Intelsat plans to dock MEV-2 with its host satellite while the host remains in geostationary orbit rather than conduct the rendezvous in a higher orbit.

Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1, launched in October 2019, is scheduled to dock with Intelsat-901 in early 2020 to extend the satellite’s life.

MEV-1 docked with Intelsat-901 using a capture mechanism that engaged through the throat of Intelsat-901’s apogee engine.