ViaSat Suffers a $700 Million Space Disaster

Two weeks ago, share prices of communications satellite operator Viasat (NASDAQ: VSAT) got destroyed. The drop came on news of a broken satellite that, upon reaching orbit, turned out to be unable to deploy an antenna essential to its operation. Shares of the space company lost 28.5% on the first trading day after the news broke. They've recovered a couple of percentage points since, closing Friday trading around $29.50 a share.

The question for investors today is, do they deserve to come back even higher? And could it be that Viasat's space disaster has turned its stock into a bargain?

Built by Boeing (NYSE: BA) with help from Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), but owned by Viasat, the Viasat-3 communications satellite rocketed into the heavens atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on April 30. It took more than two months for the satellite to reach its final intended orbit, however, and begin deploying its gear to start operations -- and that's when trouble hit.

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Source Fool.com