SES-5 (also known as Astra 4B and Sirius 5) is a commercial geostationary

communication 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. C ...

operated by

SES S.A. SES S.A. is a Luxembourgish-French satellite telecommunications network provider supplying video and data connectivity worldwide to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators, governments and insti ...

It was launched on 9 July 2012. The launch was arranged by

International Launch Services International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services. Proton launches take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan while Angara is l ...

(ILS).

History

In October 2008, SES Sirius AB of Sweden (then 90% owned by SES and prior to 2003 called Nordic Satellite AB) ordered the Sirius 5 satellite from

Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cus ...

. Following full acquisition by SES in 2010, SES Sirius was renamed

SES Astra SES Astra SA was a corporate subsidiary of SES, based in Betzdorf, in eastern Luxembourg, that maintained and operated the Astra series of geostationary communication satellites between 2001 and 2011. Formed in 1985 as Société Européenne de ...

(a subsidiary of SES) and the satellite renamed Astra 4B. In 2011, SES Astra was merged back into SES and the satellite renamed SES-5.''SES adopts new management structure''
Broadband TV News. 2 May 2011. Accessed 27 May 2022

Satellite description

It was constructed by

, and is based on the

SSL 1300 The SSL 1300, previously the LS-1300 and the FS-1300, is a satellite bus produced by Maxar Technologies. Total broadcast power ranges from 5 to 25 kW, and the platform can accommodate from 12 to 150 transponders. The SSL 1300 is a modular platf ...

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 carries 24 C-band and 36

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 ...

. It covers

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, Sub-Saharan Africa,

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, Europe,

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

EGNOSS payload

SES 5 is also carrying a

hosted payload A hosted payload is a module attached to a commercial satellite with communications circuitry that operates independently of the main spacecraft but which shares the satellite's power supply and transponders. The concept has been also been referre ...

L-band The L band is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz). This is at the top end of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, at the lower ...

navigation terminal for the executive commission of the 27-nation

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

. The terminal operated as part of the

European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) developed by the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL on behalf of the European Commission. Currently, it supplements the GPS by re ...

(EGNOS) system, which provides verification of

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

(GPS) navigation signals through the use of satellites in geostationary orbit.

Launch

Sirius 5 was the original name of the SES-5 satellite. SES-5 that was launched on 9 July 2012, at 18:38:30 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Site 81/24 and is now co-located with

Astra 4A Astra 4A is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES at the Astra 5°E orbital slot providing digital television and radio broadcasts, data, and interactive services to Nordic countries, eastern Europe and sub-Saharan ...

(

Sirius 4 Sirius was a constellation of communications satellites operated at 5.0° East in geostationary orbit (GEO) by NSAB (later SES Sirius, and now a non-autonomous part of SES S.A., owner and operator of the Astra satellites). They carried digi ...

) at 5° East. This satellite provides a similar European and African coverage as

References

External links