The September 1^st explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket also destroyed the Amos-6 satellite which was sat on top of the rocket. As well as losing the valuable satellite, the catastrophe has also placed at risk a potential sale of Spacecom, which owns the Amos fleet of satellites.

Amos-6 was Israel’s most sophisticated communications satellite with 39 Ku-band transponders and a further 24 high-capacity Ka-band spot-beams. Indeed, Amos-6 was larger than the existing Amos-2 and Amos-3 satellites already in orbit.

Spacecom’s Jacob Keret (SVP/sales & marketing) has confirmed that the operator is exploring the emergency lease of an existing in-orbit satellite to fill the gap at 4 degrees West, and to use the rented satellite as an interim measure for the time being while Spacecom orders and builds a replacement satellite, likely to take 2-3 years.

Other posts by :

1. Space Sector: ‘Profound Acceleration in 2026’
2. Starcloud wants 88,000 satellites
3. Lynk Global requests “experimental” satellite access
4. Safran Space links laser direct to satellite
5. SpaceX fearful of AST SpaceMobile’s potential?
6. Equatys wants 2,800 new satellites
7. FCC eyes freeing up Weird Space Stuff spectrum
8. SES happy with releasing 160MHz of spectrum for 5G
9. Inmarsat “likely to win appeal” over Ligado/AST action

Categories: Articles, DTH/Satellite