Eutelsat 133 West A (formerly Eurobird 1, Eutelsat 28A, and Eutelsat 33C) is a Eutelsat operated

Eurobird Eurobird was a series of satellites owned and operated by Eutelsat. The Eurobird satellites provided broadcasting and telecommunication services primarily to the Western and Central European region from orbital positions of 9, 25.5 and 33 degrees ...

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

, used primarily for

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

. It was launched in March 2001, and after a short period testing at 33°E, joined

Eutelsat 2F4 Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellite ...

at 28.5°E in the Clarke Belt, just within the range of satellite dishes pointed at

SES SES, S.E.S., Ses and similar variants can refere to: Business and economics * Socioeconomic status * Scottish Economic Society, a learned society in Scotland * SES, callsign of the TV station SES/RTS (Mount Gambier, South Australia) * SES S.A., ...

' Astra 2 satellites at 28.2° east. It moved to 33° east and joined Eutelsat 33B in July 2015. Then it was moved to 133° west.

Operations

The satellite has three beams. A fixed beam covers almost all of Europe as well as north-western Africa. There are also two steerable beams - the first, "S1", co-focused with the fixed beam but with a Europe-only footprint, and a second, "S2", aimed to central Europe. This beam features many

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

s with low symbol rates, used for

satellite news gathering Electronic news-gathering (ENG) or electronic journalism (EJ) is usage of electronic video and audio technologies by reporters to gather and present news instead of using film cameras. The term was coined during the rise of videotape technol ...

. It features 24 active transponders and 12 backup transponders, all K_u band. 12 of its transponders are significantly wider (72 MHz bandwidth) than traditional broadcast satellites, and are reconfigurable into multiple "virtual" transponders. Each transponder is fixed only in its polarity, and many are carrying at least two, and up to 6 virtual transponders.

History

Once stationed at 28.5°E, the satellite was promoted as providing satellite coverage for all of Europe, and featured both analogue and digital television and radio services serving Austria, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

and other countries. Many of the services it carried had previously been on Kopernikus 2 which had operated at 28.5°E since 1990. These stations slowly started to leave, mostly due to viewers/listeners in those target audiences moving to more traditional orbital positions - 19.2°E for Austria, and the relatively new 23.5°E for Czechia and Slovakia. On 1 March 2012 Eutelsat renamed Eurobird 1 to Eutelsat 28A. In August 2012 it was confirmed that, after some loss of power events on Eutelsat 28A, Eutelsat 48B would be redeployed to the orbital position of 28.5 degrees East to ensure continuity of service. In January 2014 SES and Eutelsat agreed that SES would run the whole spectrum at the 28.5°E slot. Eutelsat leases eight transponders and commercializes 12 transponders from the Astra 2 fleet. The last active Eutelsat 28A transponders transferred to Astra 2E on 29 June 2015. It has been redeployed at 33° east and renamed into Eutelsat 33C on 3 July 2015. It was redeployed at 133° west''EUTELSAT 133 West A , Eutelsat Satellites , Eutelsat''
Eutelsat.com. Accessed February 12, 2021 and renamed Eutelsat 133 West A.

External links

Eutelsat Communications S.A.
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References

{{Use British English, date=January 2014 Spacecraft launched in 2001 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellites using the Spacebus bus Eutelsat satellites Ariane commercial payloads

Operations

History

See also

External links

References