[11-08-07 – Satellite Today]  Inmarsat Global Ltd., a subsidiary of Inmarsat plc., has signed an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) to become the commercial operator for the Alphasat project, Inmarsat announced Nov. 8.
    Alphasat is an ESA initiative for the development of Alphabus, a new platform capable of carrying a large communications payload. This new satellite will supplement the existing Inmarsat-4 satellites. The Alphasat satellite will provide service over Europe, the Middle East and Africa allowing the company access to a new allocation of L-Band spectrum across those regions. Concurrent with the award from ESA, Inmarsat Global Limited has entered into an agreement to procure the satellite from Astrium Satellites, a subsidiary of EADS. The satellite is scheduled to be completed early in 2012.