Will Israel's Future Communications Satellites also be Domestically Built?

Jacob Keret, Spacecom’s senior VP of sales and marketing for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, told SpaceNews that there are currently "no talks with Xinwei"

Will Israel's Future Communications Satellites also be Domestically Built?

The 2013 launch of Israel's Amos 4 satellite (Photo: IAI)

"At the moment there are no talks with Xinwei," Jacob Keret, Spacecom’s senior vice president of sales and marketing for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, told SpaceNews.

"The shareholders are still looking for a buyer. This has been done for the last three years. It doesn’t affect us on a daily basis as a company. We get used to this uncertainty."

"We are aiming to give back the Amos-7 satellite to AsiaSat at the end of 2020. This leaves us from today, three and a half years, which is enough time to choose almost any manufacturer. The price of the platform will be a major part of that. Each year that we are leasing the satellite for AsiaSat we have to pay $22 million, and our intention is not to use the fifth year […] if one manufacturer will take 36 or 40 months, this has to be taken into consideration."

The company's report to TASE reveals that Amos-17 is slated to launch in Q1 2019. The Amos-2 has reached the end of its commercial life and has been replaced by the Amos-7.

It is unclear why the negotiations with Xinwei were discontinued.

 

[Source: Space News]