Payload failure (antenna)
Failure of a payload component, typically an antenna or reflector, that cuts or wipes out a satellite's commercial capacity without destroying it.
July 2023: Viasat says the antenna reflector of ViaSat-3 Americas, launched on April 30, has not deployed properly, while the platform itself works. A payload failure hits the equipment that generates a satellite's commercial value, most often a deployable antenna or reflector. The platform itself, the bus, can keep functioning. Insurers especially fear this type of failure because it destroys nothing visible: the satellite stays in orbit, operational on paper, yet unable to deliver all or part of the service it was insured for. Two questions follow: how to characterize the loss, and at what threshold of lost capacity a claim is triggered. In July 2023, Viasat announced that a hardware anomaly on the reflector of its newly launched ViaSat-3 F1 satellite was preventing full antenna deployment and would cut the mission's planned capacity by several tens of percent. The resulting claim, on the order of $420 million, is considered the largest ever recorded on a single satellite. It mobilized a pool of space reinsurers and revived the debate over pricing for very high-capacity launchers and satellites, whose failure concentrates an outsized financial risk on a single event.
In July 2023, a reflector anomaly on the ViaSat-3 F1 satellite drastically cuts its commercial capacity without destroying the satellite, leading to a claim of roughly $420 million, the largest ever recorded on a single satellite.
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