Spainsat is a Spanish telecommunications satellite used for military and government communications. It allows telecommunications the different missions of the

Spanish Armed forces The Spanish Armed Forces are in charge of guaranteeing the sovereignty and independence of the Kingdom of Spain, defending its territorial integrity and the constitutional order, according to the functions entrusted to them by the Constitution o ...

abroad by providing coverage on a wide area of the world ranging from the United States and South America to the Middle East, including Africa and Europe.

Overview

The satellite belongs to

Hisdesat Hisdesat (, 'Hisdesat Strategic Services') is a Spanish company created in 2001 by Hispasat (43%), Ingeniería y Servicios Aeroespaciales (30%), EADS CASA (15%, now Airbus), Indra Sistemas (7%) and SENER (5%) with initial investment of 415 m ...

(Spanish company participated by

Hispasat Hispasat is the operating company for a number of Spanish communications satellites that cover the Americas, Europe and North Africa from orbital positions 30.0° West and 61.0° West. It was formed in 1989 and its activities include provision ...

(43%), Ingeniería y Servicios Aeroespaciales (30%), Airbus (15%),

Indra Indra (; Sanskrit: इन्द्र) is the king of the devas (god-like deities) and Svarga (heaven) in Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes/ref> I ...

Espacio (7%) and Sener (5%)), and its initial investment was 415 million euros. It 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 ...

in California United States, with an expected useful life of at least 15 years. Its takeoff mass was about 3,700 kilograms. It is instrumented with several transponders in the X band and one in the K military band. It is situated on a

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 geosynchronous orbit in altitud ...

at 36,000

kilometre The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...

s of altitude, 30 degrees west, over the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite provides coverage to humanitarian, security and intelligence missions as well as to military operations, image transfers, embassy services and Spanish governmental communications.

Launch

The satellite was launched on 11 March 2006 at 22:33 GMT from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, by an

Ariane 5 Ariane 5 is a European heavy-lift space launch vehicle developed and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guiana. It has been used to deliver payloads int ...

ECA rocket of Arianespace.

External links

Web page of Hisdesat
{{Portal bar, Spaceflight Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellites using the SSL 1300 bus Satellites of Spain 2006 in Spain Spacecraft launched in 2006