[Via Satellite 04-18-2014] Orbital Sciences<\/b> has narrowed down the most probable causes of the anomaly that has affected the Amazonas 4A satellite. During the company\u2019s first quarter earnings call, Orbital said the satellite, operated by Hispasat<\/b>, suffered a partial electrical system failure about two weeks ago. If deemed irreversible, the issue is likely to reduce transponder capacity over the course of the satellite\u2019s 15-year lifespan.<\/p>\n
Chairman, President and CEO of Orbital Sciences David Thompson said the company is not expecting a repeat of the anomaly that affected Intelsat\u2019s<\/b> Galaxy 15 satellite built on Orbital\u2019s Star 2 bus, which temporarily ceased communicating with operators in 2010. He added that the two most likely causes are confined. The first potential cause had to do with something \u201cspecific to the Amazonas 4A\u201d that Orbital does not do for other satellites, nor has it on any prior. The second could be from a \u201ccomponent\u201d Orbital has used at least 50 times over the past 10 to 12 years. Though left unnamed, Thompson said the company is moving away from this component, and that the Amazonas 4A program was the last to use it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of these are isolated,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cWe would not expect to see these occurring on any other in-orbit satellites, or for that matter ones that are going through the factory today. So I think it\u2019s pretty isolated, and I believe we will have largely completed the diagnostic work here within a handful of weeks. So I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll have a replay of the situation from four of five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orbital Sciences\u2019 revenues during the quarter were lower than expected by $13 million due to the potential loss of performance incentives from Amazonas 4A. The order rate for commercial satellite communications has been off to an atypically slow start. The company confirmed three satellite orders and four proposals that are expected to have decisions by the end of the quarter. Thompson added that, of the four, two or three could use the new GEOStar 3 satellite bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the new GEOStar 3 platform (power boosted from 5 kw to 7.5 kw, and an option for electric propulsion), Orbital sees their target market doubling, though the market share will be lower than the current 50 percent for smaller satellites due to increased competition,\u201d William Loomis, CFA at Stifel<\/b>, said in a research note.<\/p>\n
Orbital Sciences is also looking intensely at new rocket engines as pressure from the Russia-Ukraine crisis continues to have an effect on United States companies. For the first stage of launch, Orbital Sciences\u2019 Antares rocket vehicle uses two Aerojet Rocketdyne<\/b> AJ26-62 engines based on a Russia design, and Ukrainian-built first-stage airframes.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor future Antares launches beyond 2017, we are currently reviewing several proposals that have been submitted to the company in the last few months for two different Russian liquid engines, as well as one U.S. produced main propulsion system,\u201d said Garrett Pierce, CFO of Orbital. \u201cToday, it is too soon to say which option will be the best one for us, although at present it appears that the newer options may be preferable to continuing with our current engines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research and development costs associated with building the new engines are not being financed by Orbital. Instead these costs are the responsibility of the potential propulsion system providers. Orbital anticipates making a decision in the next month or two, and says the decision does not affect any NASA<\/b> launches for the next few years. Should the company opt to go with a replacement for existing technology, it will incur some cost to study and test the implementation of the alternative engine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is some additional product R&D that would be required over the next couple of years if we switch over to one of those new approaches, but it\u2019s fairly modest,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cCertainly nothing of the magnitude of the original development costs, and I think it would be fairly easily accommodated within our normal level of R&D spending, spread out over a couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orbital\u2019s small satellite launch vehicle gave a silver lining to the call, which was otherwise dominated by near-term challenges. The company has a contract to launch six Skybox Imaging<\/b> satellites on a Minotaur C. The launch is planned for fourth quarter 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Thompson mentioned some other discussions underway with Skybox for addition launches following the first contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was critical to Skybox\u2019s business plan that their launch supplier for their first full group of satellite deployments be able to launch by the end of next year, which we are able to do. and, \u2026 as in most government and commercial launch competitions, price was certainly a significant factor as well,\u201d he said. \u201cIn addition, the track record that the Minotaur family has amassed over the past dozen or so years \u2014 a perfect 25 successes in 25 launches \u2014 also I\u2019m sure played a role in the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Via Satellite 04-18-2014] Orbital Sciences has narrowed down the most probable causes of the anomaly that has affected the Amazonas 4A satellite. During the company\u2019s first quarter earnings call, Orbital said the satellite, operated by Hispasat, suffered a partial electrical system failure about two weeks ago. If deemed irreversible, the issue is likely to reduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}