Loral Signs Multiple Launch Service Agreement With Sea Launch

SEATTLE, July 15, 1996 - Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications Limited (NYSE:LOR), has signed an agreement with Sea Launch Co. for five launches on the Sea Launch system launch vehicle starting in the second half of 1998 and running through the year 2001.

This multi-launch agreement confirms Loral's confidence in the ability of Sea Launch and its partners to deliver highly reliable commercial launch services.

The agreement gives Space Systems/Loral assured access to launch at a time when demand to put commercial satellites on orbit exceeds supply and will allow SS/L to meet its customer's requirements for activating satellite communications service on specific dates. Space Systems/Loral has not yet assigned the payloads for these launches. "Space Systems/Loral looks for the best availability, reliability and pricing from launch service providers and Sea Launch offers all of these factors as well as a desirable payload capability," said Space Systems/Loral President Robert E. Berry. "In addition, we have strong relationships with several of Sea Launch's partners and believe their expertise will help Sea Launch be successful."

"Sea Launch is working to help the U.S. regain a larger share of the commercial satellite launching market," said Sea Launch Co. President Ronald Olson. "Today's much-welcomed announcement by Loral is evidence that we are taking strong, positive steps in that direction."

Space Systems/Loral is a full-service provider of commercial communications satellite systems and services, including launch services insurance procurement and mission operations from its mission control center in Palo Alto, Calif. SS/L currently has a backlog of more than 75 spacecraft.

The company is the prime contractor for the Globalstar satellites, TCI/Tempo, PanAmSat G, L-STAR, and MCI direct broadcast satellites, the nine satellites in the INTELSAT VII series, N-STAR, Mabuhay, APSTAR-IIR, TELSTAR-5 and PanAm Sat 7 & 8 communication satellites, as well as the latest series of weather-watch satellites, GOES (Geostationary Operation Environment Satellite), and the Japanese MTSAT, the next-generation Japanese air traffic control and weather-watch satellite.

Sea Launch is an innovative international partnership, jointly owned by Boeing Commercial Space Co. (U.S.), which has overall project management responsibilities; Kvaerner a.s. (Norway), which is responsible for maritime resources; KB Yuzhnoye and PO Yuzhmash (Ukraine), which manufacture the two-stage Zenit rocket upon which the Sea Launch rocket is based; and RSC-Energia (Russia), which builds the upper stage of the Sea Launch rocket and other launch support systems. Sea Launch is developing its U.S. home port in Long Beach, Calif.

These facilities -- which will include satellite processing buildings and the support infrastructure for the Sea Launch Assembly & Command Ship and ocean-going launch platform -- will be significantly more convenient to Palo Alto-based Space Systems/Loral than other, more remote launch processing sites. Rockets and satellites integrated in California will be launched from international waters in the Pacific.

Loral Space & Communications Ltd., with headquarters in New York City, is a high-technology company that primarily concentrates on space and telecommunications. Loral Space & Communications, Ltd. manages and is the largest equity owner of both the Globalstar Limited Partnership, which is building and preparing to launch the Globalstar worldwide satellite-based digital telecommunications system, and Space Systems/Loral, the world's premier manufacturer of large high-powered satellites for telecommunications and environmental applications.