Airbus confirmed on Thursday that its OneSat family of commercial telecom satellites has been affected by financial charges within its Space business.
In November, Airbus disclosed charges amounting to 400 million euros related to unidentified satellite programs during the first nine months of the year, primarily incurred in the third quarter. Sources within the industry indicated at the time that these charges notably encompassed the OneSat family.
On Thursday, Airbus announced an additional 200 million euros in charges, bringing the total for the year to 600 million euros.
“OneSat is a program that is ongoing. We have recorded charges in 2023, big time, but we remain very committed to the program,” said Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury during a news conference.
OneSat represents a series of mid-market geostationary satellites designed for reconfiguration in orbit, tailored to meet the evolving technological demands of the telecoms sector. Launched in 2019 with Inmarsat as its inaugural customer, Airbus has to date sold nine of these satellites, with one sold to an undisclosed customer.
However, over the past five years since its inception, the commercial satellite market has experienced significant disruption from new competitors, including the proliferation of low-Earth, low-cost constellations.
Chief Financial Officer Thomas Toepfer emphasized that the OneSat program was only one among several initiatives included in a comprehensive review of Airbus's Space portfolio.
“OneSat is one of the programs that we have in our space business, but the 600 million euros relates to several … programs,” Toepfer stated. “We started the exercise in Q3 and then we turned some more stones in Q4, and during that exercise, we found the additional 200 million, so very clearly it is not just one single program.”
Of the 600 million euros in charges, Toepfer noted that 200 million euros were attributed to 2023, while the remainder pertained to previous or forthcoming years.