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TURKSAT NEARING AWARD OF TWO-SATELLITE CONTRACT
By Peter B. de Selding
Space News
http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/101028-turksat-nearing-satellite-contract.html
Oct 28 2010
PARIS - Turkey's Turksat satellite fleet operator has received
best-and-final offers from bidders vying to manufacture the Turksat 4A
and Turksat 4B telecommunications satellites in a competition that
does not include the company that has built most of the previous
Turksat spacecraft, according to industry officials.
Thales Alenia Space is sitting out this contest for reasons that
remain unclear.
Turksat is already behind its stated schedule of announcing a winner
in time to have the satellites in orbit in 2012, but it has received
bids from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Melco) of Japan, Lockheed Martin
Space Systems of the United States and a team proposing a satellite
platform built by Orbital Sciences of the United States with a payload
built by Astrium of Europe, officials said.
Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences has partnered before with
Thales Alenia Space in addition to bidding on its own for full
telecommunications satellites. Officials said a win here would be a
first for an Orbital-Astrium team.
Astrium has a joint venture with the Indian Space Research Organisation
to provide small telecommunications satellites designed to compete
head-on with Orbital, but that product offer has not gained much
traction in the market.
Officials from Lockheed Martin and Melco in recent months have said
they expected to raise their profile in the commercial satellite
market.
In one or another of its corporate incarnations, Thales Alenia Space
of France and Italy has built most previous Turksat satellites and
was a shareholder in a Turkish startup satellite operator, called
Eurasiasat, which has since been folded into Turksat.
A Thales Alenia Space official said the company has elected to focus
its attention in Turkey on the Gokturk Earth observation satellite
project, a contract won by satellite services provider Telespazio of
Rome, which has the same shareholders as Thales Alenia Space.
One industry official said Turksat may have decided to bypass Thales
Alenia Space to demonstrate to other builders that it is not wedded
to one or another satellite manufacturer.
Turkish government officials in the past have threatened to punish
French industry for moves in the French parliament to classify as
"genocide" the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire at the
outset of the First World War.
Industry officials have long said that Turkish competitions like this
are among the toughest and most exhausting in the world for bidders.
From: A. Papazian
By Peter B. de Selding
Space News
http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/101028-turksat-nearing-satellite-contract.html
Oct 28 2010
PARIS - Turkey's Turksat satellite fleet operator has received
best-and-final offers from bidders vying to manufacture the Turksat 4A
and Turksat 4B telecommunications satellites in a competition that
does not include the company that has built most of the previous
Turksat spacecraft, according to industry officials.
Thales Alenia Space is sitting out this contest for reasons that
remain unclear.
Turksat is already behind its stated schedule of announcing a winner
in time to have the satellites in orbit in 2012, but it has received
bids from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Melco) of Japan, Lockheed Martin
Space Systems of the United States and a team proposing a satellite
platform built by Orbital Sciences of the United States with a payload
built by Astrium of Europe, officials said.
Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences has partnered before with
Thales Alenia Space in addition to bidding on its own for full
telecommunications satellites. Officials said a win here would be a
first for an Orbital-Astrium team.
Astrium has a joint venture with the Indian Space Research Organisation
to provide small telecommunications satellites designed to compete
head-on with Orbital, but that product offer has not gained much
traction in the market.
Officials from Lockheed Martin and Melco in recent months have said
they expected to raise their profile in the commercial satellite
market.
In one or another of its corporate incarnations, Thales Alenia Space
of France and Italy has built most previous Turksat satellites and
was a shareholder in a Turkish startup satellite operator, called
Eurasiasat, which has since been folded into Turksat.
A Thales Alenia Space official said the company has elected to focus
its attention in Turkey on the Gokturk Earth observation satellite
project, a contract won by satellite services provider Telespazio of
Rome, which has the same shareholders as Thales Alenia Space.
One industry official said Turksat may have decided to bypass Thales
Alenia Space to demonstrate to other builders that it is not wedded
to one or another satellite manufacturer.
Turkish government officials in the past have threatened to punish
French industry for moves in the French parliament to classify as
"genocide" the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire at the
outset of the First World War.
Industry officials have long said that Turkish competitions like this
are among the toughest and most exhausting in the world for bidders.
From: A. Papazian