 In 1997 AlphaStar was in the process of transitioning to the newly launched Telstar 5 satellite with the capacity for 200 video channels and 40 audio channels.On 3 March 1997, AlphaStar announced AlphaStar Canada service with 75 channels of service (in reality only 35 were full-time video).The Canadian service never launched as the company went bankrupt and ceased broadcasting operations by September of that same year.