BSAT-1a

Last updated
BSAT-1a
Mission type Communications
Operator BSAT
COSPAR ID 1997-016B [1]
SATCAT no. 24769 [2]
Mission duration13 years
Spacecraft properties
SpacecraftBSAT-1a
Bus HS-376
Manufacturer Hughes
Launch mass1,236 kilograms (2,725 lb)
BOL mass 723 kilograms (1,594 lb)
Dimensions3.15 m × 2.17 m (10.3 ft × 7.1 ft) (stowed for launch)
Power1,200 watts [3]
Start of mission
Launch date23:08:44,16 April 1997(UTC) (1997-04-16T23:08:44Z) [4]
Rocket Ariane 44LP V-95
Launch site Kourou ELA-2
Contractor Arianespace
Entered service1 August 1997
End of mission
Disposalplaced in a graveyard orbit
Deactivated3 August 2010 (2010-08-04) [5]
Orbital parameters
Reference system Geocentric
Regime Geostationary
Longitude110° east
Perigee altitude 36,097 kilometres (22,430 mi)
Apogee altitude 36,140 kilometres (22,460 mi)
Inclination 3.33 degrees
Period 24.21 hours
Epoch 11 November 2014, 19:05:02 UTC [6]
Transponders
Band Ku band: 4 (plus 4 spares)
Coverage areaJapan
TWTA power106 Watts
BSAT-1b  →
 

BSAT-1a was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes (now Boeing) on the HS-376 platform. It was originally ordered and operated by the Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT). It was used as the main satellite to broadcast television channels for NHK and WOWOW over Japan. It had a pure Ku band payload and operated on the 110°E longitude until it was replaced, along its backup BSAT-1b, by BSAT-3a. [3] [7] [8] [9] On 3 August 2010, it was decommissioned and placed on a graveyard orbit. [5]

Geostationary orbit Circular orbit above the Earths equator and following the direction of the Earths rotation

A geostationary orbit, often referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit 35,786 km (22,236 mi) above Earth's equator and following the direction of Earth's rotation.

Communications satellite artificial satellite designed for telecommunications

A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunications signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. There are 2,134 communications satellites in Earth's orbit, used by both private and government organizations. Many are in geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,785 km) above the equator, so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky, so the satellite dish antennas of ground stations can be aimed permanently at that spot and do not have to move to track it.

The Boeing Satellite Development Center is a major business unit of Boeing Defense, Space & Security. It brought together Boeing satellite operations with that of GM Hughes Electronics' Space and Communications division in El Segundo, California.

Contents

Satellite description

The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-376 satellite bus. This spin-stabilized platform had two main sections. One, the spinning section, was kept rotating at 50 rpm to maintain attitude, and a despun section that was used by the payload to maintain radio coverage. The spinning section included the Star-30BP Apogee kick motor, most of the attitude control, the power subsystem and the command and telemetry subsystems. The despun section contained the communications payload, including the antennas and transponders. [3] [10]

The Boeing 376 is a communications satellite bus introduced in 1978 by Hughes Space and Communications Company. It was a spin-stabilized bus that the manufacturer claims was the first standardized platform.

Satellite bus general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based; infrastructure of a spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload (typically space experiments or instruments); service module section of a satellite

A satellite bus or spacecraft bus is a general model on which multiple-production satellite spacecraft are often based. The bus is the infrastructure of the spacecraft, usually providing locations for the payload.

Revolutions per minute is the number of turns in one minute. It is a unit of rotational speed or the frequency of rotation around a fixed axis.

It had a launch mass of 1,236 kg (2,725 lb), a mass of 723 kg (1,594 lb) after reaching geostationary orbit and a 10-year design life. When stowed for launch, its dimensions were 3.15 m (10.3 ft) long and 2.17 m (7 ft 1 in) in diameter. With its solar panels fully extended it spanned 7.97 m (26.1 ft). [3] Its power system generated approximately 1,200  Watts of power thanks to two cylindrical solar panels. [10] It also had a NiH2 batteries for surviving solar eclipses. [3] It would serve along BSAT-1b on the 110°E longitude position for the B-SAT. [10]

The watt is a unit of power. In the International System of Units (SI) it is defined as a derived unit of 1 joule per second, and is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. In dimensional analysis, power is described by .

Nickel–hydrogen battery

A nickel–hydrogen battery (NiH2 or Ni–H2) is a rechargeable electrochemical power source based on nickel and hydrogen. It differs from a nickel–metal hydride (NiMH) battery by the use of hydrogen in gaseous form, stored in a pressurized cell at up to 1200 psi (82.7 bar) pressure. The Nickel–hydrogen battery was patented on February 25, 1971 by Alexandr Ilich Kloss and Boris Ioselevich Tsenter in the United States.

BSAT-1b was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-376 platform. It was originally ordered and operated by the Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT). It was used as backup of BSAT-1a to broadcast television channels for NHK and WOWOW over Japan. It had a pure Ku band payload and operated on the 110°E longitude until it was replaced, along its twin BSAT-1a, by BSAT-3a.

Its payload was composed of a four active plus four spares Ku band transponders fed by a TWTA with an output power of 106  Watts. Its footprint covered Japan and its surrounding island. [3]

The Ku band is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under", because it is the lower part of the original NATO K band, which was split into three bands because of the presence of the atmospheric water vapor resonance peak at 22.24 GHz, (1.35 cm) which made the center unusable for long range transmission. In radar applications, it ranges from 12 to 18 GHz according to the formal definition of radar frequency band nomenclature in IEEE Standard 521-2002.

A communications satellite's transponder is the series of interconnected units that form a communications channel between the receiving and the transmitting antennas. It is mainly used in satellite communication to transfer the received signals.

History

Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT) was founded in 1993 to broadcast by satellite the analog signals of NHK and WOWOW, including analog high definition Hi-Vision channels. [8] In June 1994, it orders two HS-376 satellite from Hughes (now Boeing), BSAT-1a and BSAT-1b. [3]

The Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT) is a Japanese corporation established in April 1993 to procure, manage and lease transponders on communications satellites. Its largest stockholder, owning 49.9%, is NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. In 1994 it was ranked by Space News as the world's 19th largest fixed satellite operator.

NHK Japanese broadcasting company

NHK is Japan's national broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized acronym in Japanese, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.

MUSE, was an analog high-definition television standard, using dot-interlacing and digital video compression to deliver 1125-line high definition video signals to the home. Japan had the earliest working HDTV system, which was named Hi-Vision with design efforts going back to 1979. The country began broadcasting wideband analog HDTV signals in 1989 using 1035 active lines interlaced in the standard 2:1 ratio (1035i) with 1125 lines total. By the time of its commercial launch in 1991, digital HDTV was already under development in the United States. Hi-Vision continued broadcasting in analog until 2007.

During 1997 B-SAT completed its Kawaguchi and Kimitsu satellite control centers. At 23:08:44 UTC, 16 April 1997 the Ariane-44LP flight V-95 successfully launched BSAT-1a, along Thaicom 3, from Kourou ELA-2 launch pad. [2] [10] On 1 August 1997, BSAT-1b entered into commercial service. [7]

Ariane 4 rocket

The Ariane 4 was an expendable launch system, designed by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) while being manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the final flight, which was performed on 15 February 2003, it attained 113 successful launches out of 116 launches to have been conducted.

Guiana Space Centre French and European spaceport near Kourou in French Guiana

The Guiana Space Centre is a French and European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport. It fulfills the two major geographical requirements of such a site:

ELA-2 former launch pad at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana

ELA-2, short for Ensemble de Lancement Ariane 2, was a launch pad at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. It was used by Arianespace for two Ariane 3 launches, the second Ariane 2 launch in 1987, and all 116 Ariane 4 launches between 1988 and 2003. Following the retirement of the Ariane 4 in favour of the Ariane 5, ELA-2 was deactivated. In September 2011 the pad's mobile service tower was demolished using explosives.

During May 2005, B-SAT ordered BSAT-3a, the replacement satellite for BSAT-1a and BSAT-1b. It was successfully launched in August 2007, and accepted into the fleet the next month. During November, 2007 BSAT-3a took over the broadcasting of analog and digital signals from BSAT-1a and BSAT-1b. On 3 August 2010, BSAT-1a was placed in a graveyard orbit and decommissioned. [7] [11]

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "BSAT 1A". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. 27 April 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 "BSAT 1A". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. 27 April 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "BSAT-1". Boeing Satellite Development Center. Archived from the original on 7 February 2010. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  4. ↑ McDowell, Jonathan. "Launch Log". Jonathan's Space Page. Archived from the original on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  5. 1 2 McDowell, Jonathan. "Geostationary Orbit Catalog". Archived from the original on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  6. ↑ "BSAT-1A Satellite details 1997-016B NORAD 24769". N2YO. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 "Milestones". Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation. Archived from the original on 8 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  8. 1 2 "Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT)". Global Security. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  9. ↑ "Space Japan Milestone – Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT)" (PDF). Space Japan Review (English version). AIAA JFSC (36). September 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Krebs, Gunter Dirk (9 September 2016). "BSat 1a, 1b". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  11. ↑ Hattori, Yoshihito (January 2008). "Report – Trends in Satellite Broadcasting" (PDF). Space Japan Review (English version). AIAA JFSC (53). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2016.

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