Amos

Israeli satellite operator Spacecom said it has lost contact with Amos-5 satellite, one of the communication satellites belonging to its Amos fleet.

The Russian built satellite was launched in 2011, with a focus on serving customers mainly in African countries. It also offered services to the Middle East, central and eastern Europe, as well as central Asia.

These customers will no longer receive any services from the lost satellite.

Services offered by the Amos-5 satellite include VSAT communications and broadband internet, telephony services and video distribution.

Spacecom said it was not able to re-establish contact with the satellite and are yet to find the reason behind the loss of contact.

"Spacecom is working around the clock, doing the utmost to speed service recovery for its customers."

The company said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that the incident will not affect its financial position.

However, it is speculated the loss of contact with Amos-5 will lead to a significant loss of revenue for the company.

Spacecom president David Pollack was quoted by Broadband TV News saying: "Spacecom is working around the clock, doing the utmost to speed service recovery for its customers.

"Our service teams are looking for solutions for our customers to enable their broadcast signals and data communications streams to continue with minimal interruption."

Before the launch of Amos-5, Sapcecom signed a five-year contract worth $28m for providing satellite communications in Africa.

Spacecom expects to launch Amos-6 satellite next year for Facebook. For the launch, it signed a $1bn contract with Facebook.


Image: Model of Israel’s Amos-5 satellite. Photo: courtesy of Wikipedia.