if you do a little bit of research you would notice that a number of current satellite builds (Globalstar; Iridium NEXT; Inmarsat to name a few) are being financed 80% to 90% by debt finance supplied under guarantees by the export development agencies of France and the US.
This allows satellite customers that wouldn't otherwise qualify for normal bank lending (err..., like NWT??) to place satellite build orders. More than US$3 billion of deals like this have already been announced...