Investors in space satellite communications company Viasat (NASDAQ: VSAT) are having a very bad day on Thursday, as news of a glitch in the company's newest satellite is pummeling the stock -- now down 28.1% at 1 p.m. ET. Yesterday evening, after the close of trading on the , Viasat revealed that its ViaSat-3 Americas satellite suffered an unexpected event during reflector deployment.  

It wasn't immediately clear how serious this issue was, but Viasat's immediate segue from admitting the problem to explaining how it will mitigate its effects -- by "redeploying satellites from Viasat's extensive fleet to optimize global coverage, and/or reallocating a subsequent ViaSat-3 class satellite to provide additional Americas bandwidth" -- implies that the satellite may be entirely inoperable due to the defect.

While the company was quick to assure the public that there will be "no disruption to customers from this event, and no impact to coverage or capacity of the respective Viasat and Inmarsat constellations currently in service," it does appear that the company's investment in ViaSat-3 Americas -- reported to be worth $700 million -- may be a total loss.  

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Source Fool.com