Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) has been selected by Intelsat, Ltd. to design, build and deliver the Intelsat-18 (IS-18) commercial communications satellite. The satellite will be based on
Orbital's flight-proven
STAR-2 platform and will generate approximately 4.9 kilowatts of payload power. The
IS-18 satellite will carry 24 C-band transponders to cover the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and 12 Ku-band transponders to provide services to the United States, French Polynesia, Australia, New Caledonia and other Pacific Islands. Following its launch and deployment, the spacecraft will be located in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) at
180° E. This latest order for one of Orbital's GEO communications satellites is the 24th to be ordered by customers throughout the world and will be the eighth in the Intelsat fleet. The IS-18 satellite will replace Intelsat's
IS-701 spacecraft. The Intelsat-18 spacecraft is the third order to be placed in 2008 for satellites based on Orbital's STAR-2 platform. In April, the company announced that
SES Americom had ordered the
AMC-1R spacecraft and, in May, Orbital announced the Company had teamed with
Thales Alenia Space for the STAR-2 based
Koreasat-6 satellite to be built for
KT Corporation of the Republic of Korea.
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