The fate of geo stationary satellite AMC-14 is still in limbo for the Luxembourg-based SES group and its underwriters.
SpaceDaily has learned that SES has backtracked on their original plan to ditch the Lockheed Martin built A2100 satellite, and is trying to offload the spacecraft to the DOD before an SES competitor or even one of its own customers buys it from the underwriters.
The US Department of Defense is negotiating to buy the AMC-14 satellite from SES directly with a loss adjustment. Then the government would move AMC-14 to a geostationary orbit inclined at roughly 10 degrees to the equator.
As reported earlier in SpaceDaily, SES is reluctant to pursue a rescue that uses a Lunar flyby due to a legal dispute with Boeing involving several issues including a patent that lays claim to the lunar flyby process.
“The last thing they want is for that option to be proven out. They told the underwriters that only an inclined orbital profile was available. It would look bad if someone were to salvage the spacecraft and perform the lunar transfer mission,” an industry expert requesting anonymity told SpaceDaily.
While the underwriters may have been misled, they are more worried about offending SES than they are about paying out. SES is the biggest player in the GEO market and an endless source of rich insurance premiums.
Further complicating the situation is the entry of several other commercial entities that are negotiating with the underwriters to buy the satellite and then use the lunar flyby process to recover the satellite into GEO.
“They would specifically like to prevent the vehicle from being bought by Echostar, the customer that originally intended to lease AMC-14 from SES,” sources told SpaceDaily.
Echostar announced in March the creation of a separate business unit that would compete with SES for fixed satellite services.
See DailyWireless: AMC-14: Killed by Lawyers?
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