AMC-18 Satellite Slated for December 8 Launch

BETZDORF, Luxembourg, Nov. 17, 2006/Satnews Daily/ ― SES Global (Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange, SESG) has announced that the Americom-18 (AMC-18) satellite was delivered to Kourou, French Guiana on November 6 to be readied for its Ariane 5 ECA launch on December 8. The A2100 spacecraft, procured by SES Global Satellite Leasing Ltd. Isle of Man, will be commercially operated by SES Americom.

The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems (LMCSS), is being launched by Arianespace for service at the 105 degrees West longitude orbital position.

The spacecraft, along with an array of testing equipment and systems, was packed into six sea containers weighing more than 30 metric tons and then loaded on a special purpose Antonov cargo plane. The flight left Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale, California processing center on November 5, 2006 and arrived the following day. The plane’s cargo was unloaded and the combined satellite program teams from Americom and LMCSS immediately began a rigorous sequence of pre-launch preparations. 

These preparations include launch site testing, spacecraft fuelling, integrating the satellite into the fairing, mating the fairing with the Ariane 5, a final set of tests, and roll-out of the rocket to the launch pad. AMC-18’s co-passenger on Ariane flight 174 will be WildBlue-1.

AMC-18 is an all C-band satellite, designed to offer full North American coverage including all 50 U.S. states, the Caribbean and Mexico from 105 degrees West longitude.  It will become the third satellite in this section of the “arc” delivering cable programming; the other two satellites are AMC-1 at 103 degrees West and AMC-4 at 101 degrees West. Working with its customers and the cable industry, Americom has installed triple-feed antennas to cable head-ends serving half of the U.S. cable households to facilitate their reception of programming from all three spacecraft. 

Lockheed said the A2100 spacecraft has been optimized for next generation programming services, including high definition channels. The high level of redundancy for the payload and all mission critical subsystems is typical of Americom spacecraft. In this instance, triple redundancy on TT&C subsystem and on-board computers, plus payload redundancy is covered with 16-for-12 transponders for intra-spacecraft backup. In addition, in-orbit protection by AMC-7, will protect the cable programming services distributed on AMC-18. 

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