Your Daily Briefing Of Satellite

Your Daily Briefing Of Satellite Industry News

Arianespace Sets July 7-8 Launch for Thailand’s iPSTAR; Reschedules Spaceway 2, Telkom 2 Flight

SS/L-built iPSTAR-1 satellite is loaded onto a Russian

Antonov AN-124 Cargo Airplane at Moffett Field, Calif.

KOUROU, French Guiana, June 7, 2005/Satnews Daily/ — A technical problem with one of the two satellites slated for launch on the night of June 24-25 has resulted in a reordering of Arianespace's mission scheduling.

Arianespace said the next launch is now set for the night of Thursday, July 7 to Friday, July 8, 2005, using an Ariane 5 Generic vehicle to orbit the iPSTAR satellite for Thailand's Shin Satellite Plc. telecommunications operator.

Weighing in with a launch weight of 14,341 pounds (6505 kilograms), iPSTAR-1 will be the heaviest commercial satellite ever delivered to geosynchronous orbit. Designed and constructed by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), iPSTAR-1 is a 1300S spacecraft, a variant of SS/L's 1300 product line that supports power requirements between 6 and 18 kW.

“iPSTAR-1 is one of the largest and most technologically advanced satellites ever built for a commercial customer,” said C. Patrick DeWitt, president of Space Systems/Loral.

Built for Shin Satellite, Plc of Thailand, iPSTAR-1 is designed to provide both enterprises and consumers throughout Asia, Australia and New Zealand with various levels of Internet access services, competing with cable modems and digital subscriber lines (DSL).

iPSTAR-1 has a total data throughput capacity of over 40 Gbps. The satellite will provide users with data speeds of up to eight Mbps on the forward link and four Mbps on the return link. From its 119.5 degrees East longitude orbital position, iPSTAR-1 will use its seven on-board antennas to create 112 spot and regional beams in the Ku and Ka frequency bands. The satellite will generate 14 kW of electrical power throughout its planned 12-year service life, according to SS/L.

Shin Satellite, a turnkey satellite operator, provides C- and Ku-band transponder leasing, teleport and other value-added and engineering services to users in Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia. Shin Satellite owns and operates Thaicom 1A, located at 120 degrees East, and Thaicom 2 and 3, co-located at 78.5 degrees East. The satellites carry a total of 49 C-band and 20 Ku-band transponders offering over 70 channels.

Arianespace has earlier scheduled the launch of Spaceway 2 and Telkom 2 spacecraft on the night of Friday, June 24 to Saturday, June 25, 2005. Spaceway 2 (6,116 kg at liftoff) will be launched for the American operator DirecTV and will provide direct television services for the United States.

Telkom 2 (1,975 kg at liftoff) will be launched for the Indonesian operator PT Telkom Indonesia and will provide telecommunications services to Indonesia.