PARIS — Arianespace will launch a small geostationary communication satellite for Intelsat on an Ariane 6 in 2026, an indication of a stable, but diminished, role for such satellites within the industrial launch market.
Arianespace announced Sept. 12 it signed a contract with Intelsat to launch the IS-45 satellite in the primary half of 2026. The satellite will fly with unnamed co-passengers on the more powerful version of the Ariane 6, the Ariane 64.
Intelsat ordered IS-45 last November from Swissto12, a Swiss company that has developed 3D-printing technologies for space systems. The one-ton satellite will carry a payload of 12 Ku-band transponders. The satellite is predicated on the HummingSat platform that Swissto12 developed with support from the European Space Agency.
Arianespace and Intelsat noted that the IS-45 contract comes nearly 40 years after Arianespace conducted its first launch for Intelsat, placing the Intelsat 507 satellite into GEO in October 1983.
The GEO satellite launch market has modified significantly over the 4 a long time since Intelsat 507. Such satellites once formed the core of the industrial launch market, with 20 to 25 satellites a yr on average being launched. That demand, though, has dropped lately amid the shift to broadband constellations in low Earth orbit.
“It’s an enormous change,” said Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, during a panel at Euroconsult’s World Satellite Business Week here Sept. 11. “You’ve got less and fewer, and the satellites ordered aren’t as heavy as they was once.”
Launch corporations say that the industrial GEO market stays essential to them despite a decline in orders. “We see that market pretty stable at about 10 launches per yr,” said Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance. Those satellites, he said, will increasingly be a part of multi-orbit systems working with LEO constellations. “I feel that market stays pretty stable.”
“It’s still a major a part of what we do,” said Tom Ochinero, vice chairman of economic sales at SpaceX. “There’s aways been this narrative of GEO launches going away. I don’t see that.”
Nevertheless, the executives acknowledged that the larger driver of launch demand is for broadband constellations. Bruno noted that the design of such constellations requires a gradual pace of launches as old satellites are replaced on a rolling basis even after the system is accomplished. “With the megaconstellations in LEO, that’s the dominant market by far.”
“We want the constellations,” Israël said. “GEO remains to be here, but definitely constellations are the stronger engine now for growth.”