[1][2] It was the second satellite of the EpicNG service, and covered Europe, Africa and most of Asia from the 60° East longitude, where it replaced Intelsat 904.

The EpicNG series also keep the use of wide beams to offer high throughput and broadcast capabilities in the same satellite.

[10] On 15 July 2016, Senior Space Program Managers Richard Laurie and Brian Sing blogged that they had been at the Boeing factory overseeing the transport preparations for Intelsat 33e to French Guiana.

[17] On 9 September 2016, Intelsat announced that due to a malfunction in the LEROS-1c primary thruster, it would require more time for orbit rising and thus the service date had been moved from the last quarter of 2016 to the first of 2017.

[18] On 22 September 2016, insurance officials estimated that the main propulsion failure would not reduce the on orbit life of the spacecraft more than 18 months.

This could translate to an insurance claim by Intelsat of around 10% (1.5 years) of the satellite service life, which could have a value close to US$40 million.

[20] In August 2017, another propulsion issue appeared, leading to larger-than-expected propellant usage to control the satellite attitude during the north/south station keeping maneuvers.

[1] Late on 19 October 2024, U.S. Space Command reported that the satellite had broken up into about 20 pieces at approximately 04:30 UTC that morning.

[20][6] The satellite's predecessor, Intelsat 29e, also suffered a premature failure and was rendered inoperable after only three years in service.