Tag Archives: AMOS-6

Following the retirement of David Pollack on 1 January 2020, Israel’s Spacecom has announced the appointment of Itzhak Shnaiberg as the company’s interim chief executive officer.

David Pollack, the long-serving Chief Executive Officer of Israeli satellite communications company Spacecom, is to step down after 24 years with the company.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been ordered to pay Spacecom U.S.$10 million for the late delivery of the AMOS-6 communications satellite that ended up being destroyed in a launchpad explosion of the SpaceX Falcon 9 it was sitting upon in 2016.

Israel’s civilian space programme is in crisis due to chronic underfunding and the continuous outsourcing of satellite communications acquisitions to foreign satellite manufacturers, according to the annual report of the Israeli State Comptroller.

After the Israeli government’s decision to subsidize Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to build the AMOS-8 communications satellite, Spacecom has informed U.S. satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL) that it is cancelling its March 2018 contract for them to build the satellite.

The Israeli government has made the decision to subsidize Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in designing and building a communications satellite following the decision by Spacecom earlier this year to tap U.S. satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral (SSL) to build its AMOS-8 satellite instead of giving the contract to IAI.

Social media giant Facebook has confirmed that one of its subsidiaries, PointView Tech LLC, is building a satellite dubbed Athena that will be placed in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and provide Gigabite-quantity Internet services in digitally deprived areas such as Africa.

Troubled Israeli commercial satellite operator Spacecom has won a U.S.$55 million contract from an unnamed customer to use the AMOS-17 satellite to broadcast content to the African continent. AMOS-17 is being built by U.S. satellite manufacturer Boeing Satellite Systems International and is scheduled to be launched by SpaceX by mid-2019, and is to replace AMOS-5 – built by a Russian manufacturer – that failed in orbit in 2015 after only four years operation of what should have been a fifteen year mission.

After losing out to Space Systems Loral for the AMOS-8 Satellite, it is being reported that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is likely to receive a satellite order from the Israeli government in a bid to save its satellite business, and adding to the woes of struggling Spacecom Satellite Communications, Ltd.

Israel's Spacecom plans to pay for its AMOS-8 communications satellite by raising U.S.$110 million through collateral bonds and bond options, just as the bid by IDB Development Corporation Ltd. to buyout Spacecom’s parent company has expired.