According to Financial Times and other news sources, the Intelsat Americas-7 satellite was lost today due to an electrical malfunction. (Click to continue...)

Intelsat Americas-7(tm) (IA-7) was a satellite launched in September 1999 and began service in November of the same year. Its coverage included United States of America, Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America. Americas-7 was serving digital programming in the Cable Zone, direct-to-user programming, as well as Internet and data applications.

The satellite was previously known as Telstar-7 (T-7) when it was the property of the Loral Space Communciations Corporation. Intelsat acquired the six North American satellites of Loral on 17 March for US$1.1 billion (Source: Loral.com). The other acquired satellites are IA-5, IA-6, IA-13 and IA-8.

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Americas-7 was lost on 28 November 2004 at approximately 7:30 AM GMT. It was operating at 129°W at 24 C and Ku bands at 36MHz. According to Geekzone.co.nz the company has already restored service to many of IA-7 customers. Intelsat will launch a new satellite, IA-8, in 2004 and will operate at 89°W. The malfunction was described as "electrical distribution anomaly" and the cause of it is being investigated, according to FT.com. Also, the satellite was insured until September 2004. It is unsure whether it is still insured, but in any case the insurance wouldn't cover all possible causes.

According to Bloomberg.com, Intelsat had agreed this August to be acquired for about 3 billion US dollars by Zeus Holdings Ltd., a new corporation formed by several companies, including Apollo Management LP, Apax Partners Worldwide LLP, Madison Dearborn Partners Inc. and Permira Advisers Ltd. (Apax and Permira have already acquired another satellite operator: Inmarsat). The loss of IA-7 gives the right to Zeus Holdings Ltd. to refuse to complete the acquisition transaction. Reportedly, Zeus is investigating the impact of the satellite loss.

Intelsat Ltd. is "a leading provider of satellite communications services worldwide, supplying video, data and voice connectivity in over 200 countries and territories" (source: Intelsat.com). It was founded in 1964 and its customers include the US Government and large telecommunications providers. In 2003 the corporation reported a revenue of about US$952 million. It has 28 satellites in orbit and has generated net income for every year since 1973.