Boeing Electric Satellite Backlog Poised To Grow

The L-3 Comms xenon-ion propulsion system (XIPS) used aboard the Boeing 702SP is said to be one of the lighter electric-propulsion technologies on the market, maximizing the weight savings but at a price of lower thrust. 

Credit: Boeing

Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, which booked a headline-grabbing four-satellite order for its new all-electric 702SP satellite design in March 2012 and has gone two years without another commercial order, on March 11 said it would sign a new customer within weeks.

At Satellite 2014, Boeing officials also said they had sold three 702SP satellites to an unidentified U.S. government customer in 2013, an order that presumably allowed the government buyer to profit from scale economies by piggybacking on the original four-satellite contract.

One industry official said Calif.-based Boeing has already signed an authorisation to proceed with the unidentified commercial customer, and that the coming contract was all but certain.

Boeing’s first 702SP order was with Satmex of Mexico, now part of Eutelsat Americas following its January acquisition by Eutelsat of Paris, and ABS of Hong Kong. Each operator agreed to purchase two satellites.

Jim Simpson

Jim Simpson, president of Boeing Satellite Systems International, said the four options that were purchased along with the four firm orders expire at the end of this year.

Patricio Northland, chief executive of Eutelsat Americas, said the company is negotiating with Boeing to extend the option deadline to permit his company to validate the 702SP’s performance, or at least its orbit-raising ability, before purchasing more spacecraft.

The first two 702SP satellites, one for Eutelsat Americas and one for ABS, are scheduled for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early 2015.

Simpson said that while this represents a slight delay from the original planning, it is within the contract terms calling for delivery between December 2014 and March 2015.

The xenon-ion propulsion system used aboard the 702SP is said to be one of the lighter electric-propulsion technologies on the market, maximizing the weight savings but at a price of lower thrust.

The satellites will require between six and eight months to travel from where they are dropped off by the Falcon 9 to final geostationary position.

Russian satellites have been using electric propulsion for decades. It is used to effectively maintain their satellites in a stable geostationary orbit.

They are generally smaller than Western satellites and are usually launched aboard the heavy-lift Proton rocket, which can carry them directly to their final geostationary position.

But the Russian Satellite Communications Co. of Moscow recently experimented with using electric propulsion to perform the full orbit-raising task.

RSCC’s Express-AM5, launched aboard a Proton in December, reached its final operating position only in March as it used its electric propulsion thrusters to perform the orbit-raising maneuver.

Andrey Kirillovich, RSCC’s director for integration services and turnkey projects, said March 13 that the satellite’s thrusters performed as designed.

He said Express-AM5, whose payload was provided by MDA Corp. of Canada with a platform built by ISS Reshetnev of Russia, is in good health at its operation location at 140 degrees east.

Satellite Operators On Guard Against Ground Attack at 2015 Spectrum Conclave

EUTELSAT 3B satellite in the Mistral room for mechanical tests

Copyright EADS Astrium / D. Marques

Commercial satellite fleet operators on March 11 said international regulators are using “flawed” documentation in calculating the future radio-spectrum requirements of terrestrial mobile broadband services.

The result, they said, is that overblown estimates of how much spectrum will be required for terrestrial wireless broadband will be distributed to governments worldwide in the run-up to a meeting in 2015 of global radio spectrum regulators.

Satellite companies are expecting a re-run of a 2007 fight with wireless terrestrial operators over a slice of the C-band spectrum heavily used by satellite services, particularly in less-developed nations.

The 2007 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07) ended with what was portrayed as a victory for satellite operators in maintaining priority access to C-band.

It turns out to have been only a partial victory, and perhaps only a temporary one. WRC-15 is now shaping up to feature a renewed push for C-band by terrestrial wireless operators.

Unlike in 2007, these companies can now point to millions of smartphones in service as Exhibit A in their argument that they need more spectrum.

It is here that the data produced by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Geneva-based United Nations affiliate that regulates wireless spectrum and satellite orbital positions, may have a disastrous effect on governments now starting to develop policies for WRC-15.

Michel de Rosen

“The ITU demand study for spectrum for mobile is simply flawed,” said Michel de Rosen, chief executive of Eutelsat of Paris.

“We’ve looked at this quite carefully and this is a major exaggeration [of demand] by a factor of 10 or even more than 100 times.”

Satellite companies said after WRC-07 that they had learned their lesson and never again would be blindsided by threats to their spectrum.

This time around, they said, they had begun organizing themselves and their constituencies so that they are prepared for WRC-15.

Romain Bausch

“We have been making good preparation this time,” said Romain Bausch, chief executive of SES of Luxembourg.

He said SES has placed representatives on the regional ITU bodies that help prepare WRC-15, and that SES recently hosted an ITU delegation led by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure to assure that the satellite industry’s views are taken into account.

Bausch said among the subjects brought up with the ITU are “the difficulties we have with the [spectrum] requirements as defined by the mobile guys.”

“Let’s not be naïve,” de Rosen said, allowing as how he did not mean to question the competence of the ITU personnel, but rather that of the political delegates to WRC-15.

“This is a real struggle with people who want to take our lunch.”

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Controversial Investment: Chinese Firm CIC To Take Stake in European Eutelsat

China Investment Corp. (CIC) is buying a 7-percent stake in satellite fleet operator Eutelsat of Paris from Spain’s Abertis Telecom for 385.2 million euros ($500 million), a transaction that values Eutelsat at 5.5 billion euros, Abertis announced June 22.

Barcelona-based Abertis, which used to be Eutelsat’s biggest shareholder, has been gradually reducing its stake to refocus on investments in which it can gain a controlling interest.

In satellite telecommunications, Abertis has increased its ownership of satellite fleet operator Hispasat of Spain, in which it now has a 46.6 percent equity stake.

Abertis has long harboured ambitions to purchase a majority share of Hispasat but up to now the Spanish government, which through various state-owned entities owns around 26 percent of Hispasat, has declined to give its approval.

Abertis sold a 16 percent share of Eutelsat to several investors Jan. 13 in a transaction that valued Eutelsat at 6.1 billion euros. Abertis agreed to a six-month lockup of its remaining 15.35 percent holding, meaning it could not sell those shares until mid-July.

In its June 22 announcement, Abertis said Beijing-based CIC has agreed not to take ownership of the Eutelsat shares until the lockup period ends.

Eutelsat has been a profitable investment for Abertis since its initial acquisition in 2006. Its sale to CIC brings it a net capital gain of 237 million euros.

Abertis said it would “remain a Eutelsat shareholder, with a stake of 8.35 percent,” even though a minority ownership would appear to be at odds with Abertis’ stated goal of aiming for control of the assets its owns.

“Abertis keeps on reshuffling its holdings in the satellite infrastructure business, strengthening its commitment to growth, specifically targeting projects in which it can take an industry leadership role and a greater financial consolidation, as in the case of Hispasat,” Abertis said in the statement.

CIC, an aggressive Chinese sovereign-wealth fund, was formed in 2007 with a bond issue from China’s Ministry of Finance. The company used this to purchase $200 billion in China’s foreign-exchange reserves in strategically competitive infrastructure and rare-Earth mining corporations.

Although, in its 2010 annual report, issued in July 2011, CIC describes itself as “a financial investor. As such, it does not seek to control any sector or company,” Europe, Canada and the US are not convinced.

CIC’s investments in 2010 included minority stakes in power-utility AES Corp. of Arlington, Va., Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City and energy producer Penn West of Canada.

Given the U.S. government’s position on all things involving strategic space technology and China, the CIC acquisition may nonetheless raise issues.

ITU Implores Iran To Stop Jamming EutelSat

The global regulator of satellite orbital slot and broadcast frequencies asked Iran to track down the source of intentional jamming of Eutelsat satellite signals that carry news broadcasts into Iran.

In a delicately worded statement apparently designed not to antagonize Iranian authorities, the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said it accepted the findings of the French National Frequencies Agency concluding that the interference to Eutelsat signals, particularly those from the BBC reporting on Iranian politics, is coming from Iranian territory.

The French agency, on behalf of Paris-based Eutelsat, has written to Iran on multiple occasions in the past year asking that the interference cease. The ITU Radio Regulations Board also contacted Iran, whose administration responded that it did not know the source of the signal jamming, which has interfered with broadcasts from Eutelsat satellites located at four different orbital slots.

The BBC has moved its BBC Persian news broadcasts from one satellite to another in an attempt to find an orbital slot that permits broadcasts into Iran but makes it difficult for Iran-based jammers to interfere with the signal.

The ITU’s Radio Regulations Board concluded that “the interfering signals appear to be of a nature” that is forbidden under ITU rules and is originating in Iran “based on the measurements provided by the administration of France, and having confidence in the measurement techniques.”

The ITU, a United Nations affiliate, has little power to enforce its rulings. It depends on member nations to respect the regulations as a matter of good faith in the general interest of maximizing the use of the radio spectrum and satellite orbital positions.

The ITU said it “urged the administration of Iran to continue its effort in locating the source of interference and to eliminate it as a matter of the highest priority.” It said it has asked the French administration and its own Radiocommunication Bureau “to assist the administration of Iran in identifying the source of the interference.”

Eutelsat has been telling French authorities for months about the interference, and the 27-nation European Union has urged Iran to stop it.