Israeli company Spacecom announced that its communication satellite AMOS-5, it lost contact with on November 21, 2015, was forever gone. The satellite cannot be retrieved, added Russian manufacturer JSC Information Satellite Systems – Reshetnev who built the satellite when declaring the satellite “fully de-energized”. “The malfunction is final and any additional operation of the satellite is impossible,” the manufacturer told Spacecom.

Spacecom which was providing services mostly to operators such as Orange in Africa, namely South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, DR Congo and Zambia ; promised to provide alternatives to these countries to solve the various troubles experienced by telecom services in these nations since contact was lost with AMOS-5.

“From the moment contact was lost with the satellite, countless attempts were made to renew contact, but they all failed,” Spacecom said in a statement.

“According to optical observation, the satellite was seen in orbit on its course spinning around at a pace typical for satellites in which systems are totally malfunctioning. […] All orders sent to the satellite from the ground control center were found to be written correctly (…) “According to the manufacturer, the most likely reason for the malfunction is a complete failure of the power supply system, as a result of a malfunction inside or from an object hitting a part of the power supply system or the associated wiring”,Spacecom revealed.