Intelsat says it has lost the IS-33e satellite following an anomaly disclosed on October 19, 2024.
Earlier this week, the company announced a service outage on the Intelsat 33e satellite, which affected customers in Europe, Africa and parts of the Asia-Pacific region. They confirmed the reason for the outage on October 24 (AEDST).
“We are working closely with Boeing, the satellite manufacturer, to address the situation,” a statement reads. “Based on the information available to us, we believe it is unlikely that the satellite will be recoverable.”
Reports say the satellite broke up, and US Space Command has identified 20 pieces of it that are now heading toward Earth.
“We are coordinating with the satellite manufacturer, Boeing, and government agencies to analyse data and observations,” the statement adds. “A Failure Review Board has been convened to complete a comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly. Since the anomaly, Intelsat has been in active dialogue with affected customers and partners. Migration and service restoration plans are well underway across the Intelsat fleet and third-party satellites.”
IS-33e was designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems. It was launched in August 2016 and entered service in January 2017. It is located at 60 degrees east.
