SES Americom


SES Americom was a major commercial satellite operator of North American geosynchronous satellites based in the United States. The company started as RCA Americom in 1975 before being bought by General Electric in 1986 and then later acquired by SES S.A. in 2001. In September 2009, SES Americom and SES New Skies merged into SES World Skies.

History

RCA American Communications was founded in 1975 as an operator of RCA Astro Electronics-built satellites. The company's first satellite; Satcom 1, was launched on December 12, 1975. Satcom 1 was one of the earliest geostationary satellites.
Satcom 1 was instrumental in helping early cable TV channels to become initially successful, because these channels distributed their programming to all of the local cable TV headends using the satellite. Additionally, it was the first satellite used by broadcast TV networks in the United States, like ABC, NBC, and CBS, to distribute their programming to all of their local affiliate stations. Satcom 1 was so widely used because it had twice the communications capacity of the competing Westar 1, which resulted in lower transponder usage costs.
14 more Satcom satellites would enter service from 1976 to 1992. In 1986 General Electric acquired RCA and renamed the Americom unit to GE American Communications. From 1996 new satellites were named in the GE-# series, i.e. GE-1 in 1996, GE-2 in 1997 etc.

SES purchase

In November 2001, GE sold its GE Americom unit to SES for $5 billion in cash and stock. As a result of the sale, GE Americom was renamed SES Americom and SES Global was formed as the parent company. SES's existing operations were moved to the newly created SES Astra subsidiary. SES formerly bought a satellite from failed DBS company Crimson Satellite Associates and GE Americom while still under construction by GE AstroSpace. Renamed Astra 1B, it was launched to add extra capacity to the satellite television services from 19.2° east, serving Germany, the UK and Republic of Ireland.
After the acquisition of GE Americom by SES, all the satellites previously named with the GE-# prefix were renamed AMC-#.
The President and CEO of the new SES Americom was Dean Olmstead. He left the company in 2004 and was succeeded by Edward Horowitz. SES Americom was subsequently placed under Robert Bednarek, the President and CEO of SES New Skies.
In September 2009, SES Americom and SES New Skies were re-branded SES World Skies.

Satellite Fleet

Before being merged into SES World Skies in 2009, SES Americom operated the following North American satellites in geosynchronous orbit:
SatellitePositionManufacturerModelLaunchedLaunch vehicleComments
AMC-1103°WLockheed MartinA2100ASeptember 8, 1996Atlas IIA
AMC-2101°WLockheed MartinA2100AJanuary 30, 1997Ariane 44LReplaced by SES-1
AMC-387°WLockheed MartinA2100ASeptember 4, 1997Atlas IIAS
AMC-4101°WLockheed MartinA2100AXNovember 13, 1999Ariane 44LPLaunched in 1999 as GE-4. Replaced by SES-1
AMC-579°WAlcatel SpaceSpacebus 2000October 28, 1998Ariane 44L
AMC-672°WLockheed MartinA2100AXOctober 22, 2000Proton-K/DM-2
AMC-7137°WLockheed MartinA2100ASeptember 14, 2000Ariane 5GLaunched in 2000 as GE-7. Backup to AMC-10 since 2015
AMC-8139°WLockheed MartinA2100ADecember 19, 2000Ariane 5GLaunched in 2003 as GE-8
AMC-983°WAlcatel SpaceSpacebus 3000B3June 7, 2003Proton-K/Briz-MFailed in June 2017, apparently broke apart
AMC-10135°WLockheed MartinA2100AFebruary 5, 2004Atlas IIAS
AMC-11131°WLockheed MartinA2100AMay 19, 2004Atlas IIAS
AMC-1237.5°WAlcatel Alenia SpaceSpacebus 4000C3Feb 3, 2005Proton-M/Briz-MRenamed NSS-10
AMC-1461.5°W Lockheed MartinA2100March 14, 2008Proton-M/Briz-MLaunch failure
AMC-15105°WLockheed MartinA2100AXOctober 15, 2004Proton-M/Briz-M
AMC-1685°WLockheed MartinA2100AXDecember 17, 2004Atlas V
AMC-18139°WLockheed MartinA2100ADecember 8, 2006Ariane 5-ECAReplaced AMC-2 previously at 105°W
Satcom C379°WGE AstroSpaceGE-3000September 10, 1992Ariane 44LPInclined orbit
AMC-21125°WThales Alenia Space / Orbital Sciences CorporationSTAR-2August 14, 2008Ariane 5-ECA-