Intelsat General Corp. has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to provide bandwidth to The London Satellite Exchange Ltd., a subsidiary of Astrium Services, itself a unit of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), to support unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance operations in Afghanistan — London Satellite Exchange is Astrium Services engineering, satellite bandwidth procurement and operations partner for the ASTEL-S contract with the French Ministry of Defense.


IS-601 coverage map As part of the contract, Intelsat repositioned the steerable Ku-band spot beams on its satellite IS-601 to provide both a low-data-rate link to control the UAV in flight and a high-data-rate link to collect real-time video and photos from the aircraft for use by troops deployed in the field. The satellite will support operations of the French Air Force’s SIDM (the French acronym for medium-altitude long-endurance drone), operating out of Bagram Airfield north of Kabul. The teams of French mechanics, pilots and analysts began making preparations to fly the UAV in early February and had the first flight only 15 days later, an extremely rapid operation. SIDM is manufactured by EADS’ Defence & Security Division (DS) which has played a decisive role in its operation with inclined orbit satellites and its subsequent deployment to Afghanistan. IS-601 was launched in 1991 and operates at an inclined orbit at 47.5 degrees East. Communications satellites are placed in inclined orbit (by ceasing North / South station-keeping) in order to extend their useful life. Inclined orbit capacity is suitable for several applications, including trunking and mobility, providing customers with a communications solution that is also cost-efficient. The IS-601 satellite has 64 C- and 24 Ku-band transponders.