Intelsat has contracted Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to build and deliver two high-power satellites that will provide DTH television service in Latin America, the FSS operator announced Sept. 9. 

   Intelsat said that it would operate the DLA-1 and DLA-2 satellites and provide them to regional DTH digital television services operator DirecTV Latin America. The Ku-band payloads on the satellites aim to expand DirecTV Latin America’s DTH entertainment offerings and provide backup and restoration services. The two satellites are scheduled for launch in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and will be co-located with Intelsat’s Galaxy 3C satellite at the 95 degrees West orbital slot.

   “The DLA-1 and DLA-2 satellites fuel the already stellar growth of the DirecTV business in Latin America for new HDTV services, and provides full fleet redundancy for the reliability of these services for our customers. By working closely with Intelsat and SS/L, DirecTV has been able to leverage the spot-beam frequency reuse technologies to greatly expand the capacity into Latin America with the industry’s best technology,” DirecTV Executive Vice President and CTO Rômulo Pontual said in a statement.

   Financial details of the manufacturing contract were not disclosed.