Intelsat 27 was an American

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

which was to have been operated by Intelsat. Intended as a replacement for Intelsat 805, it was destroyed after the rocket carrying it to orbit fell into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

56 seconds after launch.

Design

Based on the Boeing 702MP

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are opposed to specially produced satellites. Bus- ...

, Intelsat 27 was designed to provide fifteen or more years of service to Intelsat customers in North America, South America, the Atlantic Ocean region and Europe. The spacecraft had a mass of , and was equipped with 20 C band and 20 transponders for commercial users, as well as 20 UHF transponders for military use. Originally intended for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, the UHF payload was to have been leased to the

government of Italy The government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President. The Italian Constituti ...

following the US Department of Defense withdrawing. The satellite would have been positioned at 55.5° West in geostationary orbit, co-located with Intelsat 805 and Galaxy 11.

Launch

Sea Launch Sea Launch was a multinational—Norway, Russia, Ukraine, United States—spacecraft launch company founded in 1995 that provided orbital launch services from 1999–2014. The company used a mobile maritime launch platform for equatorial lau ...

were contracted to launch Intelsat 27, using a

Zenit-3SL The Zenit-3SL is an expendable carrier rocket operated by Sea Launch. First flown in 1999, it has been launched 36 times, with three failures and one partial failure. It is a member of the Zenit family of rockets, and is built by the Yuzhnoye ...

carrier rocket flying from the

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

platform anchored in the Pacific Ocean. The rocket lifted off from Odyssey at 06:56 UTC on February 1, 2013, however shortly afterwards Sea Launch issued a statement that the launch failed "approximately 40 seconds after liftoff", during first stage flight. Initial indications are that the rocket's first stage engine was intentionally shut down after the vehicle went out of control. Intelsat stated that they were "clearly disappointed with the outcome of the launch". Sea Launch's Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) found that the problem was in the hydraulic power supply unit in the Zenit-3SL's first stage.

References

Satellites using the BSS-702 bus Spacecraft launched in 2013 Intelsat satellites Satellite launch failures {{US-spacecraft-stub

Design

Launch

See also

References