Steerable Ka-band spot beam up to 450Mbps data transmit capacity, steerable S-band user beam and L-band Land Mobile beam fully compatible with the EMS (European Mobile System) payload developed by ESA. Launched by an Ariane 5 rocket on 12 July 2001, it originally reached an orbit much lower than planned (590 km x 17487 km) due to a malfunction in the launch vehicle's upper stage.It was remotely reconfigured to reach its intended station by means of a novel procedure.First, over the course of about a week, most of its chemical fuel was used to put it in a 31,000 km circular orbit (by raising first the apogee then the perigee, going via a 590 km x 31000 km orbit). Then, its electric-ion motor — originally intended for station keeping and for firing a few minutes at a time — was instead kept running for most of 18 months, pushing the spacecraft into an outward spiral trajectory. It gained altitude at the rate of about 15 km per day, until it reached the intended geostationary orbit. On January 1, 2014 Avanti, a London-based company, took the ownership of the satellite as well as 21.5E orbital slot rights.