MEXICO CITY - A $250 million satellite seems to have died in space, cutting service to major companies, beepers and thousands of rural school children who depend on televised instruction.
Operators said Monday that services were quickly shifted to other satellites. But education officials said that some schoolchildren could remain without classes for weeks.
''It's not dead, but the prognosis is very bad,'' said Lauro Gonzalez, chief executive officer of Satelites Mexicanos SA, the Mexican satellite unit of Loral Space & Communications Inc.
The backup central processor of Satmex's Solidaridad I failed Sunday morning, Gonzalez said. Its primary central processor failed last year.
The failure stripped television service from 12,000 mostly rural secondary schools across Mexico that depend on satellite signals for some or all of their teaching, according to Alfredo Cortina, spokesman for the federal Public Education Secretariat.
Some schools in remote areas have only a handful of students and depend entirely on televised instruction. Cortina said missed television classes would be repeated later.
''The federal government has decided that education will have priority in the solution of this problem,'' Cortina said.
But he said it would take emergency brigades of technicians three weeks to restore service to some of the schools, whose antennas must be reoriented to capture signals from other satellites.
The Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported Monday that the satellite collapse had knocked out its service to 50 subscribers of its news service. El Universal had turned to the internet in place of the satellite, the agency editor's Manuel Nolasco said.
Gonzalez said the satellite's customers included 28 companies, mostly in the television and radio broadcasting and telecommunications businesses. Half are Mexican companies.
Satmex said Solidaridad I was orbiting 21,00 miles above the earth at 15,000 mph. When the battery runs out, Satmex will be unable to recover the satellite.
The cause of Sunday's failure was under investigation, Gonzalez said.
Solidaridad I was launched Nov. 19, 1993, and was scheduled to orbit until 2007. It was built by General Motors Corp.'s Hughes Space & Communications Co.
Mexico's 17,000 bank branches reported no problems Monday, as operations were switched last year to the Solidaridad 2 - also owned by Satmex - and to a digital network operated by Telefonos de Mexico SA., the country's largest phone carrier.
Hector Rangel Domene, president of the Mexican Bankers Association, said last year's satellite shutdown affected financial transactions throughout Mexico, prompting banks to switch to back up networks and move communications to a newer satellite.
