SES Astra Orders New
Satellite From Astrium
(15 July 2008) SES Astra, an SES
company, announced today that it awarded the construction of a new satellite,
Astra 1N, to the European satellite manufacturer Astrium.
The
spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2011 and will be positioned at Astra`s
prime orbital position 19.2 degrees East. It will mainly serve the German,
French and Spanish markets, and provide customers with continuous operating and
back-up satellite capacity at this key location. Astra 1N will have 55
transponders with pan-European coverage, and will operate in the Ku frequency
band. Its expected lifetime is 15 years.
Astra 1N will be built on a
Eurostar E3000 platform, the latest version of Astrium's Eurostar series which
has proven to be highly reliable in commercial service. 11 Eurostar E3000 are
currently in operation in orbit, and 13 more have been ordered. After Astra 2B,
1M and 3B, Astra 1N is the fourth Astra satellite to be built by
Astrium.
SES Astra currently operates five satellites at 19.2 degrees
East (Astra 1F, 1G, 1H, 1KR and 1L), operating the 120 Ku-band frequencies
which are available at this orbital position. Astra 1KR and Astra 1L were
launched in the last two years. Astra 1M is scheduled for launch during the
fourth quarter of this year. With the arrival of Astra 1N, SES Astra will
continue to operate all 120 frequencies and transponders at 19.2 degrees East
on four satellites (Astra 1KR, 1L, 1M, 1N), while offering inter-satellite back
up capacity. Astra 1N will initially replace Astra 1G, which will become
available for use at other orbital positions within the fleet.
"The
procurement of Astra 1N represents another important step in our strategy to
continuously invest in our core business, and reinforce the high performance
and efficiency of our fleet," said Ferdinand Kayser, President and Chief
Executive Officer of SES Astra. "With Astra 1N, we will have completed our
comprehensive replacement programme at our prime orbital position of 19.2
degrees East and fully renewed our fleet at that position, thereby maintaining
during the next decade the very high quality customer service. This will also
enable us to continue to respond to the strong demand for digital and High
Definition (HD) capacity, and to provide significant growth potential to key
European markets."
"We are pleased to have chosen Astrium, a
manufacturer with a proven track record, and we look forward to working with
their excellent technical teams on this project," said Martin Halliwell,
President of SES Engineering, which oversees the satellite procurement process
for SES.
"We are extremely pleased that SES, a long standing customer of
Astrium, has reaffirmed its confidence in the Eurostar E3000 series with this
latest order," said Evert Dudok, CEO of Astrium Satellites. "We share a common
view of technical excellence and look forward to maintaining the extremely
successful collaboration established by our teams, most recently on Astra 1M
ready for launch later this year and Astra 3B which is currently under
production. "
About SES Astra
SES Astra is the leading
Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite system in Europe. The satellite fleet currently
comprises 14 Astra and two SIRIUS satellites. The combined satellite system
delivers services to more than 117 million DTH and cable households and
transmits a total of 2,295 analogue and digital television and radio channels.
SES Astra also provides satellite-based multimedia, internet and
telecommunication services to enterprises, governments and their agencies. With
42 High Definition (HD) channels available via its satellites today, Astra and
SIRIUS represent the most important HDTV broadcasting platform in Europe. The
prime orbital positions for Astra and SIRIUS are 19.2° East, 28.2°
East, 23.5° East, 5° East and 31.5° East.
SES Astra is an
SES company. SES owns three market-leading satellite operators, SES Astra in
Europe, SES Americom in North America, and SES New Skies which provides global
coverage and connectivity. The company owns 90 percent of SES Sirius in Europe,
as well as strategic participations in Ciel in Canada and Quetzsat in Mexico.
SES provides outstanding satellite communications solutions via a fleet of 38
satellites in 25 orbital positions around the globe.
About
Astrium
Astrium, a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, is dedicated to
providing civil and defence space systems and services. In 2007, Astrium had a
turnover of €3.5 billion and 12,000 employees in France, Germany, the
United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands. Its three main areas of activity are
Astrium Space Transportation for launchers and orbital infrastructure, Astrium
Satellites for spacecraft and ground segment and its wholly owned subsidiary
Astrium Services for the development and delivery of satellite services. EADS
is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2007, EADS
generated revenues of €39.1 billion and employed a workforce of more than
116, 000.
(source: SES Astra)
