IAI AMOS-6

IAI AMOS-6 was an Israeli communications satellite of the Spacecom AMOS series, built by Israel Aerospace Industries. It was the second implementation of the AMOS-4000 satellite bus after AMOS-4 and was intended to replace AMOS-2. Spacecom signed a 195 million US dollar contract with IAI in June 2012 and later contracted SpaceX for a Falcon 9 launch. The communications payload came from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates and Thales Alenia Space ETCA supplied the electric propulsion. Facebook and Eutelsat had agreed to lease Ka-band spot beam capacity on it. On 1 September 2016, during propellant loading before a static fire test, a Falcon 9 suffered an anomaly on the launch pad, and the explosion destroyed both the rocket and the satellite two days before its planned launch. The manufacturer insurance, not Spacecom, covered the cost of the lost satellite.