Company: VSAT
Filing Date: 2025-02-10
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0000950170-25-016993
Chunk: 92

Company: VIASAT INC
Filing Date: 2025-02-10
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 1
Chunk 92
---
 will depend on a variety of factors, including the stage of development of our satellite projects, new market opportunities and our overall operating performance.

As we continue to build and expand our global network and satellite fleet, from time to time we enter into satellite construction agreements for the construction and purchase of additional satellites and (depending on the satellite design) the integration of our payload and technologies into the satellites. See Note 14 — Commitments to our consolidated financial statements included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2024 for information regarding our future minimum payments under our satellite construction contracts and other satellite-related purchase commitments (including satellite performance incentive obligations) for the next five fiscal years and thereafter, as well as purchase commitments including satellite-related agreements under the contractual obligations table below. The total project cost to bring a new satellite into service will depend, among other things, on the scope and timing of the earth station infrastructure roll-out and the method used to procure fiber or other access to the earth station infrastructure. Our total cash funding of a satellite project may be reduced through third-party agreements, such as potential joint service offerings and other strategic partnering arrangements.

In connection with the launch of any new satellite and the commencement of commercial service on the satellite, we expect to incur additional operating costs that negatively impact our financial results. For example, when ViaSat-2 was placed in commercial service in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2018, this resulted in additional operating costs during the ramp-up period prior to service launch and in the fiscal year following service launch. These increased operating costs included depreciation, amortization of capitalized software development, earth station connectivity, marketing and advertising costs, logistics, customer care and various support systems. In addition, interest expense increased during fiscal year 2019 as we no longer capitalized the interest expense relating to the debt incurred for the construction of ViaSat-2 and the related gateway and networking equipment once the satellite was in commercial service. As services using the new satellite scaled, however, our revenue base for broadband services expanded and we gained operating cost efficiencies, which together yielded incremental segment earnings contributions. We anticipate that we will incur a similar cycle of increased operating costs and constrained bandwidth supply as we prepare for and launch commercial services on future satellites, including our ViaSat-3 constellation, followed by increases in revenue base and in scale. However, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in significantly increasing revenues or achieving or maintaining operating profit in our communication services segment, and any such gains may also be offset by