Intelsat’s IS-33e Satellite is a ‘Total Loss’

Intelsat confirmed on Monday the Intelsat-33e satellite is a “total loss” after a recent anomaly. Intelsat first reported a service outage on the satellite on Oct. 19.

U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S) on Saturday confirmed the satellite broke up in orbit. S4S is currently tracking 20 pieces of debris while conducting ongoing analysis and reported no immediate threats.

Intelsat said on Monday the operator is coordinating with satellite manufacturer Boeing and government agencies to analyze data and observations. The operator has started a failure review board to find the cause of the anomaly.

The outage is impacting customers in Europe, Africa and parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Intelsat said that migration and service restoration plans are underway across the Intelsat fleet and third-party satellites.

Intelsat-33e was built by Boeing based on the 702MP satellite bus and entered service in 2017 at 60 degrees East orbital position. It has a mixed C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band payload.

The satellite is part of the Intelsat Epic high throughput satellite (HTS) series, which consists of IS-29e, IS-33e, and IS-32e all based on the same Boeing platform.

This is the second in-orbit failure for the Epic fleet — IS-29e failed in 2019 after the propulsion system sprung a leak and the satellite could not be recovered.