[SatNews] SES S.A. (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) has announced that the SES-8 satellite has been successfully co-positioned with SES’s NSS-6 satellite at the orbital location of 95 degrees East and is now fully operational to serve the thriving markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

Artistic rendition of the SES-8 satellite.

Image is courtesy of Orbital Sciences.

SES-8 was launched on December 3, 2013 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board a SpaceX/Falcon 9 booster in SpaceX’s maiden launch into geostationary transfer orbit. Since then, extensive in-orbit tests have confirmed the flawless functioning of the spacecraft. SES-8 was manufactured by Orbital Sciences Corporation. The satellite features up to 33 Ku-band transponders (36 MHz equivalent) and is equipped with high performance beams to support the rapidly growing markets in South Asia and Indo-China, as well as to provide expansion capacity for DTH, VSAT and government applications. Through the co-location with NSS-6 at 95 degrees East, SES-8 not only provides incremental high performance capacity, notably for DTH services, but also delivers greater reliability and additional security for SES’s customers at that orbital position.