WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Commercial operators whose scheduled launches are now under threat, according to the report, include SES of Luxembourg, satellite operator Orbcomm of Rochelle Park, New Jersey as well as Eutelsat of Paris and ABS of Bermuda.
“The failure… is almost certain to deal a blow to the revenue projections of numerous SpaceX commercial customers that had been basing their results on being in orbit this year or early in 2016,” Space News reported on Monday.
Orbcomm’s 11 remaining second-generation satellites were scheduled for launch this year.
Another company that had relied upon SpaceX to provide reliable and inexpensive launch services over the next two years was mobile satellite services provider Iridium Communications of McLean, Virginia.
ViaSat Inc. of Carlsbad, California needed its ViaSat-2 broadband satellite launched to return to growth ViaSat’s US consumer broadband business, and was scheduled on a mid-2016 flight of SpaceX’s next booster rocket, the Falcon Heavy, Space News said.
“Spacecom of Israel’s Amos 6 and Sky Perfect JSat of Japan’s JCSat-14 also had been scheduled for launch this year,” Space News added.
Argentina’s Conae space agency had also planned two Falcon 9 launches to put two radar Earth observation satellites into orbit, the report concluded.
