[1] It spent most of its operational life at the 93° West longitude orbital position, serving the North American market.
It had lost a backup command and control receiver, the back up computer, and had completely shut off twice.
The satellite first shut down on 22 April 2001 causing the Fox network to relocate feeds to Telstar 5 at 97° West.
Several cable television networks immediately took action to move their feeds to backup satellites in order to keep themselves on air in the event of total failure.
In February 2009, following an urgent call from the Pentagon's Joint staff, Intelsat moved the satellite to the 50.8° East orbital position for use by the United States Department of Defense for unmanned aerial vehicle support.