At the time of its launch on 12 July 1989, it was the largest civilian telecommunications satellite ever built, and sometimes known as "LargeSat" or "L-Sat".

The satellite had a series of unfortunate accidents in orbit and went out of service on 11/12 August 1993.

[1] The first accident was the loss of ability to articulate the satellite's solar arrays.

The satellite spun out of control and efforts to stabilise it resulted in the expenditure of the majority of its fuel.

[2] The Olympus bus was reincarnated as Alphabus, made by the same manufacturers, this time for Inmarsat (Inmarsat-4A F4).