On 13 June 1998, there was a brief shut-down of a portion of the C-band capacity on Galaxy VII that was accompanied by the failure of the primary on-board spacecraft control processor (SCP.) Control of the satellite was automatically switched to the spare control processor and the spacecraft was operating normally. Since then, Galaxy VII was used as backup satellite, providing occasional services in the United States.
On 22 November 2000, the secondary SCP failed. The satellite was declared a total loss.