UPCOMING LAUNCHES
EUTELSAT 21B (ex. W6A)
Eutelsat Communications has selected Thales Alenia Space to build EUTELSAT 21B, a 40-transponder Ku-band
satellite. EUTELSAT 21B will enable a 50% increase in capacity operated at 21.5° East, where it will be located in geostationary orbit. Scheduled for launch in third quarter 2012, the satellite will replace
Eutelsat‘s EUTELSAT 21A craft at a core neighbourhood anchored for data, professional video and government services across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
:: EUTELSAT 21B satellite image
EUTELSAT 70B (ex. W5A)
Astrium has been selected by Eutelsat Communications to build a 48-transponder Ku-band satellite that will be located at its 70.5° East location in geostationary orbit. Scheduled for launch in fourth quarter 2012, the satellite will replace the EUTELSAT 70A craft and more than double Eutelsat’s resources at 70.5° East. It will be used for a range of professional applications that include government services, broadband access, GSM backhauling and professional video exchanges in Europe, Africa and Central and South-East Asia.
Weighing in at five tonnes, EUTELSAT 70B will be based on the Astrium Eurostar E3000 platform with a designed in-orbit lifetime exceeding 15 years. Each of the satellite’s four high-performance fixed beams will be focused over a distinct zone: Europe, Africa, Central Asia and South-East Asia reaching as far as Australia. Through a high degree of on-board connectivity, clients will be able to use the beams either for regional coverage or to interconnect continents. This will support high-growth services that include secure government communications in Central Asia through hubs located in the region or in Europe, business networks between South-East Asia and Africa, and direct connectivity between Europe and Australia.
:: EUTELSAT 70B satellite image
EUTELSAT 25B (ex. EUROBIRD™ 2A)
Space Systems/Loral has been selected by Eutelsat Communications and ictQATAR (representing the State of Qatar) to build the high-performance satellite they will jointly own and operate at the 25.5° East location in geostationary orbit. The two organisations selected Space Systems/Loral to deliver a spacecraft with a more than 15-year design life based on the Space Systems/Loral 1300 satellite bus, which is a decades-proven, modular platform with high power capability and flexibility for a broad range of applications.
To enter into service in early 2013, this powerful satellite will provide a significantly expanded mission and superior coverage across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia to follow on from the EUTELSAT 25A satellite, which is currently operated at 25.5° East. In addition to securing Ku-band continuity for Eutelsat and additional Ku-band resources for ictQATAR, it will initiate a Ka-band capability to open business opportunities for both parties. The spacecraft’s multi-mission architecture will enable ictQATAR and Eutelsat to respond to demand for the fastest-growing applications in the Middle East and North Africa, including video broadcasting, enterprise communications and government services. The television market will in particular benefit from the installed base of more than 13 million satellite homes already equipped for Direct-to-Home reception from this neighbourhood.
EUTELSAT 7B (ex. W3D)
Thales Alenia Space has been commissioned to build the EUTELSAT 7B satellite
that will replace the W3B spacecraft lost after its launch on October 28. The delivery schedule
of the new 56-transponder satellite has been fixed to 24 months, enabling Eutelsat to plan for
commercial availability from early 2013.
Based on the Spacebus 4000 platform of Thales Alenia Space, EUTELSAT 7B will be copositioned with
Eutelsat’s EUTELSAT 7A satellite at 7° East to expand operational capacity at this longstanding location
to 70 transponders from 44. These additional resources will enable existing customers to
expand their business, will increase in-orbit security and inject new capacity to 7° East to
capture business opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
EUTELSAT 7B satellite will deliver three key coverage zones: high-power Ku-band coverage of Europe with a beam centred over Central Europe and
Turkey particularly optimised for Direct-to-Home (DTH) reception; extensive coverage across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East as far as Central Asia, via a Ku-band beam for professional video links and data networks; and Ku-band coverage of Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean islands for regional
telecommunications and Internet services. Interconnection with Europe will also be
possible with the African coverage through a combination of Ka-band frequencies in
Europe and Ku-band frequencies in Africa.
EUTELSAT 3B
Eutelsat has selected Astrium to build a tri-band satellite, which will increase and diversify its resources for markets in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. Called EUTELSAT 3B, and with up to 51 transponders, the satellite will operate in C, Ku and Ka-bands. It will be launched in early 2014.
To complement Eutelsat’s capacity portfolio and geographic reach, the EUTELSAT 3B satellite will add resources in three frequency bands connected to fixed and steerable antennas for maximum flexibility. With a single platform assembling Ku, C and Ka transponders, users will be able to select the most relevant frequency band for different types of service. Ku and C-band capacity will further consolidate Eutelsat’s response to broadcast and data markets. High throughput beams in the Ka-band, that will be individually steerable to regional and national markets and operated with scalable allocation of power and spectrum, will in addition support innovative applications in bandwidth-demanding markets.
The EUTELSAT 3B satellite will be based on the Astrium Eurostar 3000 platform. Weighing 6 tonnes at launch, the satellite will be designed with 15 year life expectancy.
EUTELSAT 9B
Eutelsat has initiated a new satellite programme that will significantly expand and diversify resources at its 9° East location which addresses high-growth video markets across Europe. A high-capacity Ku-band satellite called EUTELSAT 9B, ordered from Astrium, will be launched to 9° East at the end of 2014. EUTELSAT 9B will be based on the Eurostar E3000 platform.
The deployment of the 66-transponder satellite will take 9° East to a new level of performance, increasing resources by over 70%. Capacity will be spread across five footprints, with frequency reuse significantly increasing overall bandwidth.
One pan-European footprint will deliver wide coverage for channels seeking maximum reach into satellite homes and to terrestrial headends (cable, ADSL, DTT …). Four focused footprints will individually address high-growth digital TV markets in Italy, Germany, Greece and the Nordic/Baltic regions. This regional footprint model will enable pay-TV platforms and national DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) programmes to efficiently address linguistic markets and in parallel leverage reception from the HOT BIRD™ neighbourhood. The regional mission for Italy has been designed in partnership with ASI (the Italian Space Agency). Its usage will be shared between ASI, for Italian institutional requirements, and Eutelsat, for video broadcasting in one of Europe’s most dynamic TV markets.
EUTELSAT 9B has also been selected by Astrium Services to host the first data relay payload for the European Data Relay Satellite System (EDRS) being implemented through a Public-Private Partnership between Astrium and ESA. The EDRS system of telecommunications satellites in geostationary orbit will allow very high data rate, bi-directional data relay communications between Low Earth Orbit Earth Observation satellites and an associated ground segment.
