THAICOM 6 () is a Thai

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

of the

Thaicom Thaicom Public Company Limited is a Thai satellite operator and provider of satellite and telecommunication services since 1991. The company operates a fleet of four satellites covering Asia, Oceania, and Africa. Thaicom is a subsidiary of Into ...

series, operated by Thaicom Public Company Limited, a subsidiary of

INTOUCH InTouch was a Chinese quality control company based in Shenzhen that was acquired by ''Asia Quality Focus'' in 2019. The company provided quality control services in factories across China to several foreign firms. History InTouch was founde ...

headquartered in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. THAICOM 6 is colocated with

Thaicom 5 Thaicom 5 was a geostationary communications satellite operated by Thaicom. It was used to provide communications services to Asia, Africa, Middle East, Americas, Europe and Australia. Overview Thaicom 5 was constructed by Alcatel Alenia Space ...

at 78.5 degrees East, 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 ...

. The total cost for the satellite is .

Overview

THAICOM 6 is a

3-axis stabilized spacecraft Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, ...

, carrying 18 active C-band

transponder 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 ...

s and 8 active Ku-band transponders. The Ku-band transponders are both addressed as well as beam-switched to broadband. THAICOM 6 provides communication service to Southeast Asia, Africa and Madagascar with its primary role being DTH service for Thailand.

Launch

The spacecraft was launched on 6 January 2014, by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

on a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. The payload was delivered by SpaceX to a -

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

supersynchronous elliptical

transfer orbit Orbits Astrodynamics In orbital mechanics, a transfer orbit is an intermediate elliptical orbit that is used to move a spacecraft in an orbital maneuver from one circular, or largely circular, orbit to another. There are several types of tran ...

that will later be reduced by the satellite builder Orbital Sciences Corporation to an approximately circular

. The supersynchronous transfer orbit enables an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

plane change with a lower expenditure of propellant by the satellite's kick motor. ` This launch was SpaceX's second

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

of a payload to a

Geostationary 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 ...

.SpaceX Targeting Jan. 3 For Launch of Thaicom 6
/ref> Both the SES-8 SpaceX launch before this one and THAICOM 6 utilized a supersynchronous transfer orbit, but Thaicom 6 was at a somewhat greater apogee than that used for SES-8. The Falcon 9 upper stage used to launch THAICOM 6 was

left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...

in a decaying elliptical low-Earth orbit which decayed over time and, on 28 May 2014, re-entered the atmosphere and burned up.

References

External links

Thaicom 6
at Orbital.com {{Orbital launches in 2014 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Thaicom satellites SpaceX commercial payloads Spacecraft launched in 2014 2014 in Thailand Satellites using the GEOStar bus

Overview

Launch

See also

References

External links