Dubbed Internet Routing In Space (IRIS), the project will bear fruit in 2009, when the actual launch is scheduled to occur.  At that point, “IRIS will enable U.S. and allied military forces with diverse satellite equipment to seamlessly communicate over the Internet from the most remote regions of the world,” according to Bill Shernit, President and CEO of Intelsat.

And several different corporations intend stick a finger in this (moon) pie.  “Satellite operator Intelsat will handle the management of the project with Cisco supplying the software technology,” reports The Register’s John Leyden.  “Denver-based Seakr Engineering has been picked to manufacture router hardware capable of surviving the extreme temperature and radiation hazards of space.”

The router hardware may also need to be hardened against nasty looks from Brazil or Greenland – IRIS could be drifting over those countries.  Intelsat only said that the satellite will be “in geostationary orbit at 45 degrees West longitude with coverage of Europe, Africa and the Americas,” however.

After three years of testing, IRIS will – assuming no intergalactic battles have popped up – be converted to “commercial use.”  If we’re to believe Dan Brown, Intelsat’s Vice President of Hosted Payload Programs, that could have a huge impact on the world.

“The IRIS architecture allows direct IP routing over satellite, eliminating the need for routing via a ground-based teleport, thereby dramatically increasing the efficiency and flexibility of the satellite communications link,” Brown said.

“IRIS is to the future of satellite-based communications what ARPANET was to the creation of the Internet in the 1960s.”

In accordance with existing satellite anomaly contingency plans, Intelsat is in the process of making alternative capacity available to its IS-804 customers. The satellite, launched in 1997, furnished telecommunications and media delivery services to customers in the South Pacific. Intelsat and Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the satellite, are working together to identify the cause of the problem. Intelsat currently believes that there is no connection between this event and the recent IA-7 satellite anomaly as the two satellites were manufactured by two different companies and their designs are different.

A number of Intelsat-operated satellites in the region are being utilized to restore service to affected customers, and many end users of IS-804 capacity are already operating normally using replacement capacity. Intelsat has also begun working with other fleet operators where necessary to ensure the quickest possible restoration of service for customers.

According to a Reuters article,

“The world’s No. 2 communications satellite operator, which is in the midst of being acquired by private equity investors for $3.1 billion, said late on Sunday it expects to record a non-cash impairment charge of about $73 million to write off the value of the IS-804 satellite.

The satellite was not insured since the company insures only those with a book value of more than $150 million.”

“The loss of a satellite is an extremely rare event for us, and our first priority must be restoration of service to our customers,” said Conny Kullman, CEO of Intelsat. “Intelsat remains firmly committed to the region that was covered by IS-804, and all necessary effort and assets will be allocated to ensure Intelsat satellite coverage throughout the Asia-Pacific region.”

Intelsat expects to record a non-cash impairment charge of approximately $73 million to write off the value of the IS-804 satellite. The IS-804 was not insured, in accordance with Intelsat’s practice of insuring only those satellites with a net book value greater than $150 million.

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