spacetoday.net: Loral agrees to joint ownership of Apstar 5

Posted: Tue, Sep 24, 2002, 7:58 AM ET (1158 GMT)
Loral Space and Communications agreed to split ownership of the Apstar 5 communications satellite on Monday as part of a deal to expedite the launch of the spacecraft. Loral will pay APT Satellite Holdings $115.1 million for half of the 54 transponders on Apstar 5, a spacecraft Loral had planned to build for APT alone. Loral will call the satellite Telstar 14 while APT will continue to refer to the spacecraft as Apstar 5. According to terms of the agreement, the two companies will honor an existing contract to launch the spacecraft on a Chinese Long March 3B if the US government grants an export license by the end of September, otherwise, the companies will seek a contract on an alternate launch vehicle. Loral agreed to purchase half of the spacecraft in order to get APT to drop its demands to retain the Chinese launch option, Space News reported, since it is unlikely that a export license will be granted in the foreseeable future.