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. ...

operated by SES S.A. 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 SES Sirius, formerly called Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) was the owner and operator of the two Sirius satellites, which provide the Nordic countries and the Baltic states, with TV, radio, data and communications solutions. The company is today entire ...

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 cu ...

. 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 ...

(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

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 transponders. 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#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...

, 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 t ...

, 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 referred ...

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 en ...

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 ...

. 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 rep ...

(EGNOS) system, which provides verification of Global Positioning System (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 ''Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy'' rus, Космодром Байконур''Kosmodrom Baykonur'' , image = Baikonur Cosmodrome Soyuz launch pad.jpg , caption = The Baikonur Cosmodrome's " Gagarin's Start" Soyu ...

, Site 81/24 and is now co-located with Astra 4A ( Sirius 4) at 5° East. This satellite provides a similar European and African coverage as Astra 4A.

References

External links