Intelsat 901 (IS-901) is the first of nine new Intelsat satellites launched in June 2001 at 18° West, providing Ku-band spot beam coverage for Europe and C-band coverage for the

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region. It is capable of selectable split uplink for Satellite news gathering (SNG), tailored for increased communications demands such as DTH and Internet.

Satellite

Intelsat 901 was launched by an

Ariane 4 The Ariane 4 was a European expendable rocket, expendable launch vehicle in the Ariane (rocket family), Ariane family, developed by the (CNES), the Government of France, French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). The manufacturi ...

from the

Centre Spatial Guyanais The Guiana Space Centre (; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approxim ...

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

on 9 June 2001 at 06:45

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 ...

. * Increased power – Intelsat 901 is designed to provide up to 5 dB for downlink EIRP, and up to 1.8 dB for G/T over the Intelsat 7 series satellites. * Increased Capacity – with over 72 C-band, 36

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

equivalent unit

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 ...

, Intelsat 901 provides a significant increase in capacity over the previous satellite at 18° West. * Improved Coverage – Intelsat 901 provides significantly expanded zone coverage. The Ku-band spot beams also include more areas within each zone.

Encounter with Russian Olymp-K satellite

On 9 October 2015,

SpaceNews ''SpaceNews'' is a print and digital publication that covers business and political news in the space and satellite industry. ''SpaceNews'' provides news, commentary and analysis to an audience of government officials, politicians and executives ...

reported that in April 2015, the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

satellite '' Olymp-K'' had moved to within of Intelsat 901 and the nearby Intelsat 7, causing concerns of a safety-of-flight incident. Attempts by Intelsat to contact the Russian satellite operators were unsuccessful and no reason for the satellite's movement was given by the Russian government. The move sparked classified meetings within the

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and heightened suspicions that Olymp-K satellite was performing

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...

, or was possibly an

anti-satellite weapon Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are space weapons designed to incapacitate or destroy satellites for Military strategy, strategic or Military tactics, tactical purposes. Although no ASAT system has been utilized in warfare, a few countries (China, ...

Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1)

On 9 October 2019,

Mission Extension Vehicle The Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) is a spacecraft that extends the functional lifetime of another spacecraft through on-orbit satellite servicing. They are 2010s-design small-scale in-space satellite-refueling spacecraft first launched in 20 ...

-1 (MEV-1) launched from

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 ...

on 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 ...

. Its mission is to dock with Intelsat 901 and extend its operational lifespan by performing station-keeping for the aging satellite. Before the docking of MEV-1 and Intelsat 901, ground controllers transitioned customers off of Intelsat 901 and moved the satellite to a

graveyard orbit A graveyard orbit, also called a junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an Orbit (physics), orbit that lies away from common operational orbits. One significant graveyard orbit is a supersynchronous orbit well beyond geosynchronous orbit. Some satellit ...

in December 2019 so that Intelsat 37e could use its orbital slot. Docking occurred on 25 February 2020 at 07:15 UTC. MEV-1 rendezvoused with Intelsat 901, reached out with mechanical fingers, and grabbed the target craft using its liquid propellant engine as a grapple point to pull the two satellites together. Over the next two months,

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

and satellite prime contractor Space Systems/Loral performed tests on the satellites' systems before using MEV-1 to lower Intelsat 901 back to the geosynchronous arc at 27.5° West (332.5° East) orbital longitude, where it will remain for five years. On 17 April 2020, Intelsat and Northrop Grumman announced that Intelsat 901 had officially returned to operational service on 2 April 2020 at its new orbital longitude. The satellite replaces

Intelsat 907 Intelsat 907 (or IS-907) was a communications satellite operated by Intelsat. Launch Intelsat 907 was launched by an Ariane 4 rocket from Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana, at 06:44 UTC on February 15, 2003. Capacity and coverage The 4. ...

, a 17-year-old satellite now four years past its design life. After five years, MEV-1 will move Intelsat 901 back to a final graveyard orbit and release it before moving to another potential client. On 9 April 2025 Intelsat declared an end of mission and MEV-1 moved Intelsat 901 into the graveyard orbit and undocked. Northrop Grumman will now return back to GEO for Optus D3, the next target to lock onto now that it's 5-year mission with Intelsat is over.

Ku-band specifications

* Total transponders: Ku-Band up to 22 (in equivalent 36 MHz units) * Polarization: Ku-Band Linear - Horizontal or Vertical * Uplink frequency: Ku-Band 14.00 to 14.50 GHz * Downlink frequency: Ku-Band 10.95 to 11.20 GHz and 11.45 to 11.70 GHz * G/T (Ku-Band) (Beam Peak): Spot 1: up to +9.0 dB/K, Spot 2: up to +9.0 dB/K * SFD Range (Beam Edge): Ku-Band -87.0 to -69.0 dBW/m²

References

External links

Intelsat 901
{{Orbital launches in 2001 Intelsat satellites Spacecraft launched in 2001 Spacecraft launched by Ariane rockets Satellites using the SSL 1300 bus