China wins breakthrough contract for Thaicom telecommunications satellite

[savuporo]

http://spacenews.com/china-wins-breakthrough-contract-for-thaicom-telecommunications-satellite/

China Great Wall Industry Corp.’s win of a contract for a high-throughput Ka-band broadband satellite for Thailand’s Thaicom is a breakthrough deal for China’s satellite export industry, which up to now has relied on domestic demand and special-circumstances orders, mainly from emerging-market governments.

The contract, from Thaicom subsidiary International Satellite Co. Ltd., is valued at $208 million covering the satellite’s construction and launch, continuing a China Great Wall Industry Corp. (CGWIC) practice of bundling satellite construction and launch contracts.

Scheduled for launch in late 2019, the satellite will carry a Ka-band payload with 37 GHz of capacity, which Thaicom said is equivalent to a throughput of 53 gigabits per second. It will cover a large swath of East and South East Asia, including South Korea and Japan..

[rpapo]

Given that SpaceX has launched two satellites for Thaicom already (Thaicom 6 in 2014, Thaicom 8 in 2016), this begs the question: did SpaceX lose out to the Chinese for this launch?  If so, why?

[savuporo]

This is a satellite deal first and foremost, or that's where most of the money is anyway. The primary competitors here would be Space Systems Loral, Orbital Sciences and Thales.

[rpapo]

This is a satellite deal first and foremost, or that's where most of the money is anyway. The primary competitors here would be Space Systems Loral, Orbital Sciences and Thales.

Thanks for the clarification.  With all the attention we've had lately on the launch vehicles, it's easy to forget that without the payloads we wouldn't have the launchers.

[baldusi]

This is a satellite deal first and foremost, or that's where most of the money is anyway. The primary competitors here would be Space Systems Loral, Orbital Sciences and Thales.

This is a high throughput satellite. The competitors would be SSL, Boeing, Thales and Airbus. So I would guess that it is also a DF-5 satellite.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Note the following paragraphs:

International Satellite Co. said it would lease the satellite’s full capacity to “a major customer” for the full 15 years of expected service life, and that this customer would be responsible for making milestone payments to CGWIC under the contract.

The customer was not identified, and it was unclear whether the company was referring to a transaction with Thaicom or with some other entity.

It seems that (from Chinese forum reports) the customer might be Synertone Communication, based in Shenzhen & Hong Kong, which has Chinese telecom giants CITIC Group and China Telecom as its two biggest shareholders. This company already market some of the transponders of IPSTAR/Thaicom 4 as "Synertone 1" and they have signed an MoU with CGWIC for Synertone 2 in June 2014. Then Thaicom signed an MoU with CGWIC for possibilities of buying comsats in November 2014.

So it looks like that Thaicom 9 =  Synertone 2 and that explains why they are buying satellites from the Chinese.  Not that much of a breakthrough really.

Sources:

http://bbs.9ifly.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=13659
http://bbs.9ifly.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=14172

[savuporo]

Not a revolution, but still a significant development with CGWIC actually getting a measurable part of the global sat building industry revenue. Bundled with a launch.
A sign of technological and cost competitiveness as well

[savuporo]

A trend:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=7058.msg1679674#msg1679674

http://spacenews.com/china-great-wall-industry-corp-lands-indonesian-commercial-satellite-order/

[Star One]

A trend:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=7058.msg1679674#msg1679674

http://spacenews.com/china-great-wall-industry-corp-lands-indonesian-commercial-satellite-order/

Seeing that struck me as too how infrequently we see China winning such contracts, though of course the explanation for this infrequency is contained in the article.

[deruch]

May also be that CGWIC compensation for previous under-performance was included to make the contract more attractive.

[Star One]

May also be that CGWIC compensation for previous under-performance was included to make the contract more attractive.

Seems a possibility from the way the article was worded.