Nilesat 101 is an Egyptian owned

geosynchronous A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

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 ...

that was decommissioned in February 2013.

Launch

Nilesat 101 was launched by 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 ...

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

from

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

on 28 April 1998 at 22:53:00 UTC by

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 ...

. The satellite is powered by solar arrays, and the power is stored aboard batteries.

Mission

The satellite was manufactured by the European company

Matra Marconi Space Matra Marconi Space (MMS) was a Franco-British aerospace company. History Matra Marconi Space was established in 1990 as a joint venture between the space and telecommunication divisions of the Lagardère Group ( Matra Espace) and the GEC ...

(

Astrium Astrium was an aerospace manufacturer subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) that provided civil and military space systems and services from 2006 to 2013. In 2012, Astrium had a turnover of €5.8 billion and 1 ...

), and started official broadcasting on 1 June 1998 with a mission life of 12 years. At launch the spacecraft had a gross mass of 1,666 kg.

Orbit

It was parked at the geostationary orbital position of 7° West together with its sister Satellite Nilesat 102 and carries 12 K_u band 100 W high power wide beam

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 of 33 MHz bandwidth to provide digital communications and terrestrial Direct to Home (( DTH)) TV,

radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

and

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...

services for countries in North Africa, South Europe and the Middle East. The two satellites carry approximately 150 TV channels, with 100 of those originally coming from Nilesat 101, covering all the Middle East countries; north from Southern Europe to Central Africa, south, and east from Iran to the Atlantic Ocean, west. Nilesat 101 provided service to more than five million homes.

Operations

Nilesat 101 was operated by The Egyptian satellite Co.

Nilesat Nilesat (; , ''or'' ) is an Egyptian company and the name of a series of Egyptian communications satellites. It was established in 1996 with the purpose of operating Egyptian satellites and their associated mission control center and ground st ...

that was established in 1996 with the purpose of operating Egyptian

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 ...

s and their associated mission control center and ground stations. The two control centers are located in Cairo and Alexandria.

References

External links