[SatNews] Paradigm Services, part of Astrium Services' Telecoms division, has entered into a 15-year contract with Telesat, the world’s fourth largest fixed satellite services operator, for the full X-band payload on Telesat’s Anik G1 satellite.

Astrium, through Paradigm Services, currently provides state-of-the-art seamless milsatcom services to the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Department of Defense, the Canadian Department of National Defence and many other international armed forces and Government Agencies, combining its own satellites with capacity leases to meet all milsatcom requirements. Demand for X-band services from civil and military agencies around the world is growing as governments continue to increase their use of commercial satellites. Anik G1 will be the first commercial satellite with substantial X-band coverage of the Pacific reaching out to Hawaii. The characteristics of the X-band frequency make it the ideal choice for naval platforms, allowing high data throughput with lower rain-fade margins compared with Ku or Ka-band.

Anik G1, scheduled for launch in the second half of 2012, will operate from 107.3 degrees West and will use a 3-channel, global beam, X-band payload covering Canada, the Americas, and the Pacific Ocean. In addition, Anik G1 will include 16 transponders in extended Ku-band over Canada, 24 C- and 12 Ku-band transponders over South America. The Anik G1 X-band payload has a global beam performance comparable to that of the Skynet-5 fleet of three spacecraft and will enhance Paradigm Services' existing X-band capability to provide coverage in areas that were previously unsupportable. The payload is fully NATO compatible and will therefore be able to support the entire current customer base. Part of Astrium Services’ Telecoms division, Paradigm is the prime contractor for the £4bn ($6.15bn) Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Skynet-5 contract with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the provision of military satellite communications services to 2022. In February 2010, Paradigm, backed by Astrium, concluded the agreement to provide further capability to the UK MoD, resulting in the addition of the Skynet-5D satellite to the constellation. The Anik G1 capacity will enter service around the same time as Skynet 5D, hence further cementing Astrium’s place as the world's leading commercial provider of secure milsatcom services. From the outset, Paradigm designed the Skynet-5 system to be far more capable than that required to meet the UK MoD requirements and has since supplied Milsatcom services to NATO, the Netherlands, Portugal, Canada, France, Germany, Australia and the US. This substantial coverage expansion now enables Astrium to offer Paradigm Services to numerous other militaries and government organisations throughout most regions of the world. In addition to turnkey X-band packages, the range of offerings encompasses raw capacity, coverage augmentation, anchoring and back-haul services, as well as terminal leasing.