Intelsat

 ( Official Website ) 

On 6 April 1965, Intelsat's first satellite, the Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird), was placed in geostationary orbit above the Atlantic Ocean by a Delta D rocket.

In 1973, the name was changed and there were 81 signatories. Intelsat was "governed initially by two international agreements: The Agreement setting forth the basic provisions and principles and structure of the organization, signed by the governments through their foreign ministries, and an Operating Agreement setting forth more detailed financial and technical provisions and signed by the governments or their designated telecommunications entities", — in most cases, the latter are the ministries of communications of the party countries, but in the case of the United States, was the COMSAT (COMSAT), a private corporation established by federal legislation to represent the U.S. in international governance for the global communication satellite system. Intelsat at that time directly owned and managed a global communications satellite system, and structurally consisted of three parts:

• the Assembly of Parties – meeting every two years and concerned with aspects "primarily of interest to the Parties as sovereign States"—with each country having one vote.
• the Meeting of Signatories – meeting annually and composed of all the signatories to the Operating Agreement—primarily working on financial, technical and program matters, with each countries' signatory having one vote.
• a Board of Governors, meeting at least four times each year, making decisions on design, development, establishment, operation and maintenance of the in-space assets, appointed by signatories, but weighted to each signatory's "investment share" in the space assets.

The 1973 Agreement called for a seven-year transition from national to international management, but continued until 1976 to carve out "technical and operational management of the system to the Communications Satellite Corporation which served as the Manager of the global system under the interim arrangements in force from 1964 to 1973". Later phases of the transition resulted in full international governance by 1980. Financial contribution to the organization, its so-called "investment share", was strictly proportional to each member's use of the system, determined annually; and this corresponded to the weighted vote each would have on the Board of Governors.

Intelsat provides service to over 600 Earth stations in more than 149 countries, territories and dependencies. By 2001, Intelsat had over 100 members.
Andrea Sommariva (2018). 9781622732647, Vernon Press. . ISBN 9781622732647 It was also this year that Intelsat privatized and changed its name to Intelsat.
     

Since its inception, Intelsat has used several versions (blocks) of its dedicated Intelsat satellites. Intelsat completes each block of spacecraft independently, leading to a variety of satellite manufacturing contractors over the years. Intelsat's largest spacecraft supplier by 2012 was Space Systems/Loral, having built 47 spacecraft (Intelsat 20) by that time.

The network in its early years was not as robust as it is now. A failure of the Atlantic satellite in the spring of 1969 threatened to stop the Apollo 11 mission; a replacement satellite went into a bad orbit and could not be recovered in time; NASA used undersea cable telephone circuits as an alternative to route Apollo's communications to NASA during the mission. During the Apollo 11 moonwalk, the Moon was over the Pacific Ocean, and so other antennas were used, as well as Intelsat III, which was in geostationary orbit over the Pacific.

Intelsat Americas-7 (known formerly as Telstar 7 and known as Galaxy 27 since on 1 February 2007) experienced a several-day power failure on 29 November 2004. The satellite returned to service with reduced capacity.

Intelsat was sold for US$3.1 billion in January 2005 to four private equity firms: Madison Dearborn Partners, Apax Partners, Permira and Apollo Global Management. The company acquired PanAmSat on 3 July 2006, and was then the world's largest provider of fixed satellite services, operating a fleet of 52 satellites in prime orbital locations.

In June 2007, BC Partners announced they had acquired 76% of Intelsat for about €3.75 billion.

In 2015, Intelsat reincorporated in Delaware and became Intelsat Corporation.

There were negotiations in 2017 that Intelsat could potentially merge with SoftBank Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb. However, on 1 June 2017, it was announced that the bondholders would not accept the offer and that the potential merger would be terminated as of 2 June 2017.

Public reporting showed that the company had been considering bankruptcy protection as early as February 2020,

[https://www.satellitetoday.com/business/2020/02/05/intelsat-reportedly-hires-bankruptcy-firm/ Intelsat Reportedly Hires Bankruptcy Firm Kirkland & Ellis, Considering Chapter 11],
 Rachel Jewett,
 Satellite Today,
 5 February 2020,
 accessed 14 May 2020
     

According to company statements, the company was hoping to restructure so that it could raise requisite capital to launch new satellite technology in 2022/2023, at a cost of some US$1.6 billion. The technology could compress existing licensed C-band spectrum customers into just forty per cent of the spectrum used in 2019. The release of spectrum would enable the company to receive up to US$4.86 billion in "spectrum clearing payments" from the FCC for clearing the spectrum by December 2023, two years ahead of the FCC baseline plan.

According to then company CEO, Stephen Spengler, post bankruptcy, the company plans to pursue aggressive network innovation plans, and strategic growth initiatives, including building a software-defined 5G network. The company also announced a new board of directors, led by Lisa Hammitt, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Davidson Technologies.

Intelsat has agreed to purchase one-half of the  propellant payload that an MDA Corporation spacecraft satellite-servicing demonstration project would take to geostationary orbit. [[Catching up|Orbital maneuver]] in orbit with four or five Intelsat communication satellites, a load of  of fuel delivered to each satellite would add somewhere between two and four years of additional service life. A near-end-of-life Intelsat satellite will be moved to a graveyard orbit  above the geostationary belt where the refueling will be done, "without consequence" to the Intelsat business.
     

the business model was still evolving. MDA "could ask customers to pay per kilogram of fuel successfully added to [each] satellite, with the per-kilogram price being a function of the additional revenue the operator can expect to generate from the spacecraft's extended operational life".