AsiaSat 5 is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a Transponder (satellite communications), transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a Rad ...

, which is operated by the Hong Kong–based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company (AsiaSat). It is positioned in

geostationary orbit A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular orbit, circular geosynchronous or ...

at a longitude of 100.5° East of the

Greenwich Meridian The Greenwich meridian is a prime meridian, a geographical reference line that passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England. From 1884 to 1974, the Greenwich meridian was the international standard prime meridian, ...

, where it replaced the

AsiaSat 2 AsiaSat 2 was a Hong Kong communications satellite, which was owned, and was initially operated, by the Hong Kong–based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company. It was positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 17° East of the Gr ...

satellite. It is used to provide fixed satellite services, including broadcasting, telephone and broadband

very small aperture terminal A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s to ...

(VSAT) communications, to

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and the Pacific Ocean region.

Background

The launch was originally scheduled to be conducted by

Land Launch Land Launch refers to a service product of Sea Launch, Sea Launch SA. There is no entity or company called Land Launch. Sea Launch created the Land Launch offering to address lighter satellites directly into geosynchronous orbit or into Geostationa ...

(SSL-1300LL satellite bus), using a

Zenit-3SLB The Zenit 3SLB or Zenit-3M was a Ukrainian expendable carrier rocket derived from the Zenit-2SB. It was a member of the Zenit family of rockets, which were designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Office. Produced at Yuzhmash, the rocket was a modifie ...

launch vehicle. The satellite was subsequently re-awarded to ILS after Land Launch were unable to guarantee that the satellite could be launched by August 2009, in order to be in orbit before AsiaSat 2 ceased operations.

Satellite description

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), announced in May 2005 that it has been chosen by AsiaSat. At launch, AsiaSat 5 had a mass of , and was expected to operate for fifteen years. It carries 26 C-band and 14

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 ), because it is the lower part of the original NATO K band ...

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 trans ...

Launch

AsiaSat 5 was built by

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 cust ...

, and is based on the LS-1300XS

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 less customized than specially-produced satelli ...

. It is being launched 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), using a

Proton-M The Proton-M, (Протон-М) GRAU index 8K82M or , is an Expendable launch system, expendable Russian heavy-lift launch vehicle derived from the Soviet Union, Soviet-developed Proton (rocket family), Proton. It is built by Khrunichev State R ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

with a

Briz-M The Briz-K, Briz-KM and Briz-M ( meaning ''Breeze-K, KM and M'') are Russian liquid-propellant rocket orbit insertion upper stages manufactured by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and used on the Proton-M and Angara A5. T ...

upper stage A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own Rocket engine, engines and Rocket propellant, propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of anoth ...

. The launch was conducted from Site 200/39 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, at 19:47:33

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on 11 August 2009. The Briz-M separated from the Proton-M nine minutes and forty one seconds into the flight, and AsiaSat 5 will separate from the Briz-M into a

geosynchronous transfer orbit In space mission design, a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) or geosynchronous transfer orbit is a highly elliptical type of geocentric orbit, usually with a perigee as low as low Earth orbit (LEO) and an apogee as high as geostationary orbit ...

(GTO) nine hours and fifteen minutes after liftoff. It will then raise itself into its final

References

{{Orbital launches in 2009 Spacecraft launched in 2009 AsiaSat satellites Satellites using the SSL 1300 bus

Background

Satellite description

Launch

See also

References