Jerry Petersen
Intelsat CEO and Wash100 awardee David Wajsgras said in an interview that customers are already interested in buying capacity from the medium Earth orbit constellation that the satellite services provider intends to build, SpaceNews reported Friday.
One of those potential customers is the U.S. government, which seeks to ensure global communications redundancy for civilian as well as military users via an additional network.
According to Wajsgras, talks are ongoing regarding a possible government contract that would support the MEO constellation, noting, “There are a number of different ways that contract could be structured — they could also help finance the constellation.”
The Intelsat chief executive also said his company is in the process of “looking at multiple manufacturing partners” that will be tasked to build the actual MEO network spacecraft.
Wajsgras said the selection will be made before the end of June while the satellites are expected to be launched into orbit in about four years.
