Inmarsat challenges TerreStar’s filing for launch delay

Inmarsat Global Ltd. has challenged TerreStar Networks Inc.’s request to delay for nearly a year its mobile satellite launch currently scheduled for November.
TerreStar in late May asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to extend the launch until September 2008 for its planned 2 GHz mobile satellite service. TerreStar, a majority owned subsidiary of Motient Corp., said more time is needed to accommodate manufacturing and delivery issues of its satellite supplier, Space Systems/Loral Inc.
MSS provider Inmarsat noted that four days after TerreStar announced it would not meet its November launch milestone TerreStar submitted to the FCC a lengthy filing that proposed significant changes regarding design, orbital location and feeder link frequencies.
“Seeking these fundamental changes to TerreStar’s authorized system a mere six months prior to its launch milestone is inconsistent with commission policy, which provides that these types of changes should have been proposed almost three years earlier, at the pre-manufacturing, critical design review stage,” stated Inmarsat. “More fundamentally, it raises serious questions about the relationship between the timing of these voluntary design choices and TerreStar’s inability to meet its upcoming November 2007 launch milestone.”