The past month has seen three notable in-orbit failures – Eutelsat W2, Intelsat 4 and Satmex 5. However, the anomalies have had little effect on the insurance market as none of the satellites were covered.
Intelsat does not have in-orbit insurance on the…
The past month has seen three notable in-orbit failures – Eutelsat W2, Intelsat 4 and Satmex 5. However, the anomalies have had little effect on the insurance market as none of the satellites were covered.
Intelsat does not have in-orbit insurance on the satellite, while SatelliteFinance understands that Eutelsat has a deductable in its in-orbit policy and that any claim on the remaining value of the eleven-year old W2 satellite would be below that.
As for Satmex, the failure of its primary xenon ion propulsion system (XIPS) is not a new phenomenon. The XIPS on the Boeing 601HP platform has previously suffered a number of failures and insurers have accordingly added a XIPS specific exclusion precondition to their in-orbit policies on spacecraft with the technology.
*Following a competitive tender process, Marsh completed the in-orbit renewal for Turksat’s Eurasiasat-1 satellite (also known as Turksat-2A). Marsh had won the in-orbit account for Eurasiasat-1 off of ISB last year but the satellite operator decided to launch a new process for this year’s renewal. In June 2009, Marsh also won the in-orbit tender for Turksat 3A and Turksat could well repeat this method and launch a brand new tender for the spacecraft in the summer.