ARABSAT has selected the consortium of Astrium and Thales Alenia Space to build and deliver in orbit two new satellites, Arabsat-5C and Arabsat-6B.

The manufacturing contracts were signed in Riyadh on February 4th, 2009 by Eng. Khalid Balkheyour ARABSAT president and François Auque, CEO of Astrium, and Reynald Seznec, CEO of Thales Alenia Space. Astrium and Thales Alenia Space are jointly responsible for building the satellites and delivering them into orbit. Astrium, the leading partner, will supply the Eurostar E3000 platforms and integrate the satellites. Thales Alenia Space will design and build the communications payloads. The team will also upgrade the ground control segment for the extended ARABSAT satellite fleet.

Arabsat-5C, a multi-mission satellite, will provide satellite capacity in both C-band and Ka-band frequencies at the Arabsat position 20 degrees East for a wide range of satellite communications services. A Eurostar E3000 model equipped with a payload featuring 26 active transponders in C-band and 12 in Ka-band, Arabsat-5C will have a spacecraft power of 10kW at the end of its 15-year design lifetime.

Arabsat-6B will be co-located with ARABSAT's BADR constellation of DTH satellites at its 26 degrees East video "hot-spot", extending in-orbit capacity for television services. Also a Eurostar E3000 model, equipped with a payload featuring 36 active transponders in Ku-band, Arabsat-6B will have a spacecraft power of 10.5kW at the end of its 15-year design lifetime. Both satellites will weigh less than 5 tons and will be launched by Ariane 5 in the timeframe 2010-2012.