On October 24, 2019, Eutelsat announced an investigation into a malfunction on one of the two solar arrays on its EUTELSAT 5 West B satellite. Pursuant to this investigation, the loss of the satellite’s South solar array has been confirmed. With the exception of the South solar array, the satellite performance remains nominal.
The attendant power loss means c.45% of the capacity of the satellite can be operated.
The satellite is now expected to enter commercial service later in January and is expected to meet the designed life time.
A number of mitigation actions aimed at assuring service continuity will be implemented, following the end of life in stable orbit of EUTELSAT 5 West A, for the largest possible number of customers.
EUTELSAT 5 West B is fully insured against the eventuality of a partial or total loss by a launch-plus-one-year insurance for up to 173 million euros.
The partial non-availability of EUTELSAT 5 West B will reduce Financial Year 2019-20 revenues for the Operating Verticals by 5 to 10 million euros.The one-off cost of mitigation, mostly related to the repointing of ground antennae will be between 0 and 10 million euros.
In consequence, Eutelsat’s revenue objective for Financial Year 2019-20 is mechanically revised to between €1,270 million and €1,315 million for the Operating Verticals.
All other financial objectives are unchanged.