Astrium is looking for €450m to finance the development of the company’s new geostationary Earth observation satellite in Asia.
The project has been funded internally up to now, but Astrium is looking to develop the GO-3S satellite in the Asian…
Astrium is looking for €450m to finance the development of the company’s new geostationary Earth observation satellite in Asia.
The project has been funded internally up to now, but Astrium is looking to develop the GO-3S satellite in the Asian market and needs external investment, Gregory Pederson, sales and marketing director, told SatelliteFinance.
“Our feasibility study was successfully completed at the end of 2012 and we are now looking for €450m over the next seven to ten years to develop the project,” he said.
“We plan to start manufacturing the satellite in 2016 and to launch it in 2020. We expect our financing requirements to peak during the manufacturing phase.”
While Astrium plans to develop the satellite in Asia, Pederson said that they are looking for investors worldwide to fund the project. He expected to attract institutional investors such as strategic funds, technology funds and private equity firms.
“The project is in its early stages,” he said. “No investors have made a commitment yet but some have expressed an interest.”
Pederson said that the fast-developing technology and large user community in Asia had attracted Astrium to the market.
Astrium is not the only company looking to develop satellites in Asia. As SatelliteFinance reported last month, Singapore Technologies Electronics has announced plans to build its own satellites and sell them to the global market.
The company plans to launch a remote sensing satellite called TeLEOS-1 in 2015, with another subsidiary, ST Electronics (Satcom & Sensor Systems), operating, marketing and selling TeLEOS-1’s services.
