This past weekend’s ILS/Proton rocket launch problems have placed Satmex, the next planned launch client, into an extremely dangerous position.  Russia’s Proton Briz-M upper stage failed to reach its intended orbit, and placed its satellite into a lower orbit than intended.  All planned further launches will now be subject to further delays. This will severely impact Satmex which urgently needs its new Satmex-8 craft on station given that Satmex-5, which it is intended to replace, is running out of fuel.

Russia’s Proton+Briz-M upper stage has now failed for the third time in 16 months, and is creating serious worries that the past two investigations have not addressed core workmanship issues.

Satmex-8 was originally scheduled for launch on December 28th, but that will inevitably slip. The risk for Satmex is that any delay beyond a few days could impact the relationship it has with clients.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

Categories: Blogs, DTH/Satellite, Inside Satellite