Intelsat Corporation is a communications satellite services provider located at Tysons Corner, Virginia has confirmed that its Intelsat 29e communications satellite a total loss after the Boeing-built spacecraft suffered a fuel leak and shed debris in the geostationary orbit after three years into a planned 15-year mission.
The global telecom satellite operator announced last week that the Intelsat 29e spacecraft could not be recovered after multiple anomalies earlier this month.
"Late on April 7, the Intelsat 29e propulsion system experienced damage that caused a leak of the propellant on board the satellite resulting in a service disruption to customers on the satellite,” Intelsat said in a statement. “While working to recover the satellite, a second anomaly occurred, after which all efforts to recover the satellite were unsuccessful.”
Ground-based telescopes were used to aim at the geostationary orbit located at 36,000 kilometers over the equator, revealed that the Intelsat 29e was tumbling and shedding debris. No announcement was made on the cause of the accident, which leave the Intelsat 29e spacecraft drifting out of control though the geostationary orbit where currently housing numerous commercial and military communications satellites, weather observatories and missile warning craft.
“A failure review board has been convened with the satellite’s manufacturer, Boeing, to complete a comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly,” Intelsat said.
Intelsat 293 was launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on January 27, 2016 for a planned 15-year mission. Valued at $400 million at launch, Intelsat 29e was positioned in the geostationary orbit at 50 degrees west longitude, where the orbital velocity of the spacecraft matches the rotational speed of the Earth.
Intelsat 29e was built to provide C-band video and data distribution services over South America and beamed Ku-band signals across the Americas, where passengers received live television and broadband Internet through the satellite.
Intelsat has also said that a majority of the services provided by Intelsat 29e have been restored through other Intelsat satellites and third-party spacecraft.