Orbital ATK Awarded Contract for Intelsat Communications Satellite

8 January 2018

Orbital ATK announced the company has been awarded a contract by Intelsat to build the Galaxy 30 communications satellite. The satellite will be based on Orbital ATK’s highly successful GEOStar-2™ satellite platform.

“Orbital ATK is proud to continue our legacy of producing high quality satellites for our valuable customer, Intelsat,” said Amer Khouri, Vice President of the Commercial Satellite Business at Orbital ATK. “This long-lasting relationship with Intelsat demonstrates Orbital ATK’s ability to provide satellites that meet and exceed the expectations of our customers.”

“Galaxy 30 will be the 11th satellite Orbital ATK has built for Intelsat, and represents the first satellite in the Galaxy fleet replacement program,” said Ken Lee, Intelsat’s Senior Vice President, Space Systems. “Galaxy 30 demonstrates our commitment to our Galaxy cable distribution neighborhood, which has an unmatched penetration of headends in the U.S. Our next generation video distribution fleet will excel at traditional broadcast applications, such as ultra-high definition distribution while at the same time will be capable of supporting new network solutions for applications such as over-the- top video and other distribution requirements. In addition to its C-band payload, Galaxy 30 includes Ku- and Ka-band payloads to support broadband applications. The GEOStar-2 design has the capabilities that will allow us to advance our network architecture while still providing incomparable economics for our customers.”

Galaxy 30 will be designed, built and tested at Orbital ATK’s state-of-the-art satellite manufacturing facility in Dulles, Virginia, and will primarily serve video markets in North America. The satellite is scheduled to launch in early 2020.

Galaxy 30 will be the 41st commercial spacecraft built by Orbital ATK for customers around the world. With its flight-proven GEOStar-2 spacecraft platform, Orbital ATK is the world's leading supplier of 1.5 - 5.5 kilowatt commercial geosynchronous (GEO) communications satellites used to provide direct-to-home TV broadcasting, cable program distribution, business data network capacity, regional mobile communications and similar services. The company has also manufactured three spacecraft on its new GEOStar-3 satellite platform which provides up to 8.0 kilowatt of payload power and can accommodate virtually all types of commercial communications payloads.