Amsterdam/Toulouse/Friedrichshafen/Stevenage, 13
September
2000
The ASTRA 2B TV broadcast satellite is scheduled for launch on an Ariane 5 rocket, flight N° 130, from Kourou, French Guiana, at 22:54 GMT, on the 14th September 2000. With the successful launches of the Nilesat and W1 satellites on the 17th August and 6th September, this will be the third Astrium-built spacecraft to be launched in under a month.
Société Européenne des Satellites (SES) selected Astrium as the supplier of its ASTRA 2B digital broadcast satellite. ASTRA 2B will be located on geostationary orbit at 28.2° East to provide up to 30 high power Ku-band transponders, each with an output power of 109 Watts. All the transponders offer pan-European coverage and a steerable antenna gives the capability for up to 16 of the transponders to cover any area of the Earth visible from 28.2° East. Co-located with ASTRA 2A, the two spacecraft will provide SES with a total of 56 transponders, in the frequency range 11.70 - 12.75 GHz for digital broadcasts from ASTRA's second orbital position.
The ASTRA 2B spacecraft and its payload have been manufactured entirely by Astrium. The satellite is based on the highly successful EUROSTAR series, of which 31 have now been ordered. It has a total power requirement of more than 7 kW and a launch mass of over 3.2 tons, giving an on-station lifetime of more than 15 years.
ASTRIUM, Europe's leading space company, is a joint venture owned 75% by EADS and 25% by BAE SYSTEMS. In 1999 Astrium's merger partners had a combined turnover of 2 billion Euros, covering science and Earth observation, military observation and communications, telecommunications and ground systems, launchers and orbital infrastructure. In 1999 they employed a total of 7,500 people.
For further information, please contact:
Astrium SAS - F
Rémi ROLAND +33 (0)1 34 88 35 78
Astrium Ltd - UK
Alistair SCOTT +44 (0)1 438 77 36 98
Astrium GmbH - D
Mathias PIKELJ +49 (0) 75 458 91 23
www.astrium-space.com
