 |
| All set to go: Shin Satellite’s
most advanced broadband satellite. |
KOUROU, French Guiana, Aug. 9, 2005/Satnews
Daily/ — Arianespace mission team members on Monday gave the
go-ahead for an early morning August 11 liftoff of Ariane 5 flight with
the heavyweight Thailcom 4 (iPSTAR) satellite.
The issuance of green light followed Monday’s launch readiness review at
the Spaceport in French Guiana, which validated the status of all
elements for the flight, including the Ariane 5 Generic vehicle, its
iPSTAR payload, the launch infrastructure at the Spaceport and the
network of ground stations that will track the flight.
The launch readiness review go-ahead will allow the completed Ariane 5
to be transferred today from the Spaceport's final assembly building to
the ELA-3 launch zone.
Final countdown for the mission will begin on
August 10, with the liftoff scheduled at the start of a two-hour launch
window that opens at 3:39 a.m. local time in French Guiana (06h39 GMT,
01:39 p.m. in Bangkok, and 08:39 a.m. in Paris).
Thaicom 4 (iPSTAR) was built for Shin Satellite Plc of Thailand by Space
Systems/Loral, and is being touted as the heaviest commercial satellite
to be delivered to geosynchronous orbit. The three-axis stabilized
spacecraft has a liftoff mass of 14,300 lb. (6,486 kg.), and is to
provide enterprises and consumers with various levels of Internet access
service throughout 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
With a total data throughput capacity of over 45 Gbps, the
telecommunications platform will offer user data speeds of up to four
Mbps on the forward link and two Mbps on the return link. Its complement
of seven antennas will create 112 regional and spot beams in the Ku and
Ka frequency bands.
iPSTAR will be the fourth spacecraft ever orbited for Shin Satellite,
which has used Ariane vehicles to launch all of its previous satellites.
Arianespace said the other spacecraft owned and operated by Shin
Satellite are Thaicom 1A (launched by an Ariane 4 in 1993), and Thaicom
2 and 3 (orbited by Ariane 4s in October 1994 and April 1997,
respectively).
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