NewSat Ranked Third in Spance News' Top Five List

Online, March 13, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Last month's issue of Space News magazine featured its annual Top Five Companies to Watch List, with three space communications firms occupying the top 3 spots.

At the top of the list is SpaceX . As a final demonstration of its NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract fulfillment, the company will be launching its Dragon capsule this April atop Falcon 9.

Orbital Science took the second spot, followed by Australia's locally owned satellite communications carrier, NewSat. Ranking 4th and 5th are imaging satellite firms Digital Globe and GeoEye, which recently bagged $7.3 billion worth of contracts from the Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Under the said deals, the two companies will provide the satellite imagery and related services in support of the Enhanced View project.Space News' Top 5 Companies to Watch List is primarily based on subjective selection standards of the journal. The annual list features satellite firms that have great growth and financial prospects.

Having signed a series of multi-million dollar deals with satellite payload users and satellite communications partners, NewSat is confident that it can finalize financial deals for the construction of Jabiru -1, which would be its first independently owned satellite. NewSat got Lockheed Martin to construct its first own satellite, and chose Arianespace to take charge of its deployment into the orbit. Lockheed is helping NewSat to strike a deal with the US Export-Import Bank of the US, while Arianespace is lending a helping hand to win Coface loans for the satellite communications project.

With export-credit agency financing, NewSat expects to fund 75% of the total cost of the communications satellite. The rest of the funds will come from equity financing. NewSat is working to secure financial deals before June 30, 2012, otherwise the planned construction of Jabiru 1 may have to be delayed. The Ka band satellite is expected to be launched in 2014.