[Satellite News 11-03-09] I have just returned from Kourou, French Guiana where I witnessed the spectacular launch of both the NSS-12 and Thor 6 satellites on Thursday, Oct. 29.
    It was my first time covering a launch first hand, and I found it a thoroughly intense experience. Kourou, with its fusion of French and Carribean cultures provides a stunning backdrop to events and is truly a spectacular place to have a launch. In  many ways, I had not realized just how much space and launch services power the local economy. Everywhere we drove, images of the space industry seemed to pervade the whole territory.
    For me, it was a thoroughly engaging experience. I have often written about satellites in term of business models, revenues, and future growth prospects. But, it is a completely different thing seeing one (or two in this case) launched for the first time. It was a stunning visual experience.
    The successful launch of the NSS-12 and Thor 6 satellites was met by a huge sigh of relief from executives from both SES World Skies and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting (TSB) whose business plans can now go to the next stage as a result.
     As the countdown approached to launch, you could sense the tension particularly among SES and TSB executives. After all, these satellites had been years in the making and planning. As an observer, I felt myself getting caught up in the situation, and hoping for both operators sake (as well as Arianespace and the satellite industry as a whole), that everything went to plan. Cato Halsaa, TSB’s CEO admitted to me afterwards that the countdown to launch as well as the period just after had been “one of the longest hours of his life”.
    The NSS-12 satellite’s capacity is already fully contracted out, and a strong portion of Thor 6 has also been sold to customers. In different ways, the launch of these two satellites was critical for both operators.
    The origins of NSS-12 can in some ways be traced all the way back to 2001, so almost a decade, In March 2001, Boeing won the contract to supply New Skies with the new high-powered NSS-8 satellite. Robert Ross had been the New Skies Satellites CEO at the time just so you can appreciate how far we are going back here.
NSS-12 would ultimately be the replacement for this doomed satellite. The NSS-8 satellite was a Boeing 702 spacecraft that had 56 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders designed to replace the existing NSS-703 satellite. However, this satellite would ultimately never reach its intended orbit.
    In January 2007, we all witnessed the spectacular launch failure of the NSS-8 satellite on board a Zenith-3SL launch vehicle, which SES executives ruefully admitted at Kourou guaranteed them a top spot on YouTube that week for most watched videos. The fallout of that failure meant SES New Skies (as it was then) had to reformulate its strategy.
    Rob Bednarek, SES World Skies CEO (SES New Skies CEO at the time), told Satellite News in one of the few interviews in the immediate aftermath of NSS-8 launch failure, “For New Skies principally, we are disappointed that we have lost some of our growth opportunities. NSS-8 was in part replacement capacity, but it would also have provided some additional capacity. Our biggest disappointment is that we have some customers desperately in need of additional capacity, and we now have to try and find other ways of providing for their growth.”
    The real key move in the wake of the NSS-8 launch failure was announced on May 10 that year when the operator announced the procurement of NSS-12, with Space Systems/Loral (SS/L). The satellite would have 40 x 36 MHz equivalent C-Band and 48 x 36 MHz equivalent Ku-band transponders and was the direct replacement for NSS-8.
    As the minutes approach every launch, there are no doubt nerves, but I got the impression, even for SES, a seasoned global operator, this launch maybe had that extra little bit of significance given how this satellite came into being.
    For TSB, the launch of Thor 6 was a key strategic move as it looks to build on its position in both the Nordic and Eastern European regions. Thales Alenia Space won the contract in April 2007 to build the satellite. The satellite has 36 active Ku-band transponders and will have a launch mass of less than 3 tons.
    After the launch, CEO Cato Halsaa told me that the operator can now turn its attention to gaining the finance needed for a Thor 7 satellite. TSB, which has already sold a significant portion of capacity on Thor 6, now has to try and persuade its parent company, Telenor, the merits of a Thor 7 satellite in order to get the funding it needs for this satellite. The situation is complicated by the fact that Telenor is making huge network investments in India as it is a major mobile player there. However, Halsaa said he was optimistic that the operator can gain the funding its needs in the next few months.
    However, despite his optimism, Halsaa admitted to Satellite News recently that gaining financing for this task may not be straightforward. “The financial crisis has obviously made things more difficult for prospective large capital projects like new satellites. Telenor is primarily a mobile operator with 168 million subscribers around the world, and their major project is too build 60,000 base stations in India, and that is huge project. To build this many base stations and keep a good credit rating is a challenge. Telenor’s first priority is to become a big mobile player around the world. It is doing this investment in India right after the financial crisis, so it will have an impact on us,” he said.