Taking its lead from the UK’s Paradigm Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal which had Astrium, in the form of its Paradigm Secure Communications outfit (now called Astrium Services) providing satellite services to the UK military, at the Global Milsatcom conference in London, Japan revealed that it has now selected a consortium led by SkyPerfect JSat to provide similar X-band services via two communications satellites it will construct and launch by 2016. In return the Japanese government has agreed to lease this X-band communications capacity for 15 years.
While Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts have now been discredited as poor value for money for government projects involving hospitals and schools, the Paradigm deal, which involved Astrium purchasing Skynet 4 satellites already in orbit, and financing the construction and launch of Skynet 5 satellites in return for guaranteed communications service contracts, was seen as one of the few PFI contracts that actually worked. However, critics still argue that even this ‘successful’ PFI deal, which was designed to transfer financial and technical risk from government to private industry, was, in truth, never really tested by a launch or satellite failure.
As a final note on the Paradigm/Astrium Services contract, Space News reports that at the end of the current deal with Astrium in 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence will take title to the Skynet 5 satellites which had been built and financed by Astrium.
