Astrium is celebrating 20 years of its highly successful series of Eurostar telecommunications satellites.

Since the launch of the first ever Eurostar, Inmarsat-2 F1, on the 30th October 1990, 45 Eurostars have been successful delivered into geostationary orbit, clocking up a total of more than 370 years of service. The Eurostar was the first commercial satellite to have a fully digital electronics system and was designed to be highly modular so that it could be easily customised to meet specific customer requirements. Over the past 20 years the Eurostar series has evolved considerably, becoming larger and more powerful. In a staged evolution, launch mass has increased from 1,300 kg to more than 6,000kg. The latest version, Eurostar E3000, offers in-orbit operation for more than 15 years with a payload power of between 4 to 14 kW, and has the capacity to operate over 100 transponders.

Through the years, Astrium has implemented an impressive number of innovations that have enabled the Eurostar satellites to become more efficient. For instance, Eurostar E3000 was the first commercial satellite to successfully demonstrate in-orbit Lithium-ion batteries, a revolution in telecommunications satellite power. Since the beginning of this century, 35 Eurostar E3000s have been ordered by the world’s leading satellite operators, of which 20 have already entered operational service. With 15 Eurostar E3000s currently in production for leading operators worldwide, Astrium has established itself as a global player in the design and manufacture of exceptionally reliable, high performance telecommunications satellites.