Intelsat 2, formerly PAS-2, was a

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

operated by Intelsat which spent most of its operational life serving the Pacific Rim market from a

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

of 169° East. Launched in July 1994, the satellite was operated by

PanAmSat The former PanAmSat Corporation founded in 1984 by Reynold (Rene) Anselmo, was a satellite service provider headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. It operated a fleet of communications satellites used by the entertainment ind ...

until it merged with Intelsat in 2006. The spacecraft was renamed, along with the rest of PanAmSat's fleet, on 1 February 2007.

Satellite description

PAS-2 was constructed by the

Hughes Aircraft Corporation The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other prod ...

, based on the

HS-601 The Boeing 601 (sometimes referred to as the BSS-601, and previously as the HS-601) is a communications satellite satellite bus, bus designed in 1985 and introduced in 1987 by Boeing Satellite Development Center, Hughes Space and Communications C ...

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are opposed to specially produced satellites. Bus- ...

. It had a mass at launch of , which decreased to around by the time it was operational. Designed for an operational life of 15 years, the spacecraft was equipped with 20 C-band and 20

Ku-band The Ku band () is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under" (originally german: Kurz-unten), because it is the lower part of the ori ...

transponders 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 tran ...

. Its two solar panels, which had a span of generated 4.7 kW of power when the spacecraft first entered service, which was expected to drop to around 4.3 kW by the end of the vehicle's operational life.

Launch

Arianespace Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It undertakes the operation and marketing of the Ariane programme. The company offers a number of different launch vehicles: the heavy ...

launched PAS-2, using an

Ariane 4 The Ariane 4 was a European expendable space launch system, developed by the '' Centre national d'études spatiales'' (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Ari ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

, flight number V65, in the Ariane 44L H10+ configuration. The launch took place from

ELA-2 ELA-2, short for Ensemble de Lancement Ariane 2 (French for Ariane Launch Area 2), was a launch pad at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. It was used by Arianespace for two Ariane 3 launches (V17 in 1986, V25 in 1988), the second Ariane ...

at the Centre Spatial Guyanais at 23:05:32 UTC on 8 July 1994. The satellite was placed into a

geosynchronous transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into a GTO as an intermediate step f ...

(GTO), from which it raised itself into geostationary orbit by means of an R-4D-11-300

apogee motor An apogee kick motor (AKM) is a rocket motor that is regularly employed on artificial satellites to provide the final impulse to change the trajectory from the transfer orbit into its final (most commonly circular) orbit. For a satellite laun ...

Intelsat 2

Intelsat 2 (PAS-2), launched in January 1996, the satellite was operated by

until it merged with Intelsat in 2006. The spacecraft was renamed, along with the rest of PanAmSat's fleet, on 1 February 2007.

Decommissioning

Intelsat 2 was removed from geostationary orbit in February 2011, being placed into

graveyard orbit A graveyard orbit, also called a junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an orbit that lies away from common operational orbits. One significant graveyard orbit is a supersynchronous orbit well beyond geosynchronous orbit. Some satellites are moved into ...

on 28 February 2011. Manoeuvring into graveyard orbit did not fully deplete the satellite's propellant as had been expected, so engineering operations continued until July 2011 in order to exhaust the remaining supply. The satellite was then decommissioned and powered down.

References

{{Orbital launches in 1994 Intelsat satellites Satellites using the BSS-601 bus Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellite television Spacecraft launched in 1994