SES has cancelled the IS-41 and IS-44 geostationary (GEO) satellites.

The crafts, due to serve EMEA and Asia, were ordered by Intelsat, which SES acquired last year with Thales Alenia Space as part of Intelsat’s then post-bankruptcy growth plan in 2022.

They disappeared from the company’s list of upcoming launches after it was announced two satellites would be culled as part of fleet rationalization in the May earnings call.

“SES is optimizing across a larger, more resilient satellite fleet and reducing unnecessary duplication,” an SES spokesperson told reporters. “As part of this normalization, SES is canceling two software‑defined satellite orders while retaining ample flexibility through four others and leveraging existing fleet capacity to ensure seamless, uninterrupted service for customers.”

Lisa Pataki, CFO at Luxembourg-based SES, told investors that cancellations were decided as part of a review into in-orbit service life extension feasibility for the more than 100 GEO and MEO (medium-Earth orbit) satellite fleet. Five such missions were scheduled between 2006 and 2029, to be delivered by Northrop Grumman’s SpaceLogistics subsidiary, Starfish Space, and Infinite Orbits.

SES has hardly been struggling, however, reporting €847 million ($992m) in revenues for the first quarter of 2026, up 80.5 percent Year-on-Year, driven by aviation and government connectivity services, while GEO-dependent segments in fixed data and video distribution began to struggle.

Cannes-based Thales Alenia Space was also tasked with building Flexsat Americas by Paris-based Eutelsat in 2022, a project that has also since been cancelled.

“[SES & Thales Alenia Space] continue to maintain close cooperation on current contracts, such as ASTRA 1Q and SES-26 geostationary satellites, and future projects,” Thales Alenia Space told press.

Following sobering signals about GEO in reports of the six months ending December 31, GEO revenues at Eutelsat continued to fall 4.3 percent to €93.5m ($108.47m) in the three months to the end of March, as LEO connectivity sales ballooned 65 percent to €62.2m ($72.16m )

Together, the cancellations are yet another material sign of the waning state of the geosynchronous satellite market predicted by analysts for some time.

At SatShow 2024’s Northern Sky Research briefing, Christopher Baugh, founder and CEO of the analysis group, declared: “The days of 25-30 big GEOs ordered every year are gone.”

His sentiments were echoed by research director Jose Del Rosario, who said: “GEO will coexist with LEO as a multi-orbit option, but it’s out of its heyday.”