Thor (satellite)

Last updated

Thor (previously known as Marcopolo) is a family of satellites designed, launched and tested by Hughes Space and Communications (now part of Boeing Satellite Systems) for British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), and were used for Britain's Direct Broadcast Service. Thor is owned by Telenor. [1] Marcopolo 1 launched on 27 August 1989 on the 187th launch of a Delta rocket, and Marcopolo 2 launched on 17 August 1990, on a Delta II rocket. [2] Marcopolo I had the Hughes designation HS376. [3]

Contents

Although the satellites performed as designed, BSB [4] merged with Sky Television to form British Sky Broadcasting and the BSB satellites were sold off and renamed. This also resulted in the obsoletion of the Squarial satellite-reception antenna, which was designed to operate with Thor 1 only.

Marcopolo 1 (Sirius 1/Sirius W)

Sirius W, previously known as Sirius 1, was launched on 27 August 1989. It was Hughes Space and Communications's first satellite. Marcopolo 1 was sold in December 1993 to Nordic Satellite AB of Sweden and operated until 2000 as Sirius 1 at 5°E. It was then moved to 13°W, and renamed Sirius W. It had 5 Ku band transponders.

Marcopolo 2 (Thor 1)

Marcopolo 2 was launched on 18 August 1990. It had 5 Ku band transponders. It was sold in July 1992 to Telenor of Norway and renamed Thor 1. It was located at 0.8°W. It was switched off in January 2002, and in November of that year it was moved to 7.4°W and reactivated with digital test signals broadcasting toward Scandinavia. Marcopolo 2 was sent up to the junk orbit in early January 2003.

Thor 2

Thor 2 was launched on 21 May 1997, and retired in 2008 although it remained in an inclined geostationary orbit until January 2013 when it de-orbited to the graveyard orbit. [5] It weighs 1467 kg, and has 15 Ku band transponders, with 3 spares, powered by 40-watt traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs).

Thor 3

Thor 3 (the "3" is officially "III") was a satellite used by Canal Digital in the Nordic areas for DTH services. It launched on 9 June 1998 with an expected lifetime at 12 years, and was located at 0.8°W. It had 14 active Ku band transponders powered by 47-watt traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs). The satellite was targeted on Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and parts of Central Europe. [6] Thor 3 is no longer in operation and was moved to its graveyard orbit in 2019. Thor 3 was replaced by Thor 6 in June 2010.

Intelsat 10-02 (Thor 10-02)

Intelsat 10-02 was launched on 16 June 2004, located at 1°W, and was beamed toward Central Europe and the Middle East. [7]

Thor 5

Thor 5 was launched on 11 February 2008. It was first planned that the satellite would be called Thor 2R', but Telenor named it Thor 5. It has 24 active Ku band transponders.

Thor 6

Thor 6 was launched from the Guiana Spaceport on 29 October 2009. [8] Telenor Satellite Broadcasting announced on 15 December that Thor 6 had completed all necessary in-orbit and ground-related testing and would commence commercial service in late December.

Thor 6 has 36 Ku band transponders. It provides direct-to-home television broadcasting services from the orbital location 0.8°W. It replaced Thor 3. [9]

Thor 7

Thor 7 has been built by SSL. It was successfully launched by Arianespace from Kourou spaceport on 26 April 2015. It will mainly serve maritime customers and have a total capacity of 9 Gbit/s. It was launched in tandem with the Italian/French Sicral 2 defense satellite.

Related Research Articles

This is a list of the satellites operated by Optus, an Australian telecommunications company. The satellite communications facility is located at Belrose on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Optus' satellites are divided into 4 classes A, B, C and D. As of April 2014 it owns and operates Optus B3, Optus C1, Optus D1, Optus D2 and Optus D3. Optus A1, Optus A2, Optus A3 and Optus B1 satellites have been retired. Optus has the largest network of satellites in Australia and New Zealand.

Sirius was a constellation of communications satellites operated at 5.0° East in geostationary orbit (GEO) by NSAB. They carried digital satellite television to the countries of Scandinavia, Baltic states, Eastern Europe and Africa, including the Viasat pay TV system, along with several pay TV packages for Eastern Europe, the TopTV package for Africa, a number of Ukrainian channels and the national Latvian and Lithuanian channel service free-to-air.

JSAT Corporation (JSAT) was the first private Japanese satellite operator, which owned the JSAT satellites, as well as operated and partially owned the N-Star with NTT DoCoMo. Its origins can be traced to the funding of Japan Communications Satellite Company (JCSAT) and Satellite Japan Corporation in 1985. Both companies merged into Japan Satellite Systems Inc. in 1993. In 2000 the company was renamed as JSAT Corporation and was listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. On September 1, 2008, the company was merged into the SKY Perfect JSAT Group.

Intelsat 2, formerly PAS-2, was a communications satellite operated by Intelsat which spent most of its operational life serving the Pacific Rim market from a longitude of 169° East. Launched in July 1994, the satellite was operated by PanAmSat until it merged with Intelsat in 2006. The spacecraft was renamed, along with the rest of PanAmSat's fleet, on 1 February 2007.

Intelsat 3R is a communications satellite owned by Intelsat located at 43° West longitude, serving the Americas market.

Horizons-2 is a Ku band communications satellite owned by Horizons Satellite, a joint venture between SKY Perfect JSAT Group and Intelsat. Its orbital slot is located at 74° west longitude.

The DirecTV satellite fleet is a group of communications satellites located at various geostationary orbits that DirecTV uses for their satellite television service and HughesNet internet service. The "DirecTV" prefix in their names has been changed to "T".

GSAT-10 is an Indian communication satellite which was launched by Ariane-5ECA carrier rocket in September 2012. It has 12 KU Band, 12 C Band and 6 lower extended c band transponders, and included a navigation payload to augment GAGAN capacity. Following its launch and on-orbit testing, it was placed in Geosynchronous orbit at 83.0° East, from where it will provide communication services in India.

BSAT-1a 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 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. On 3 August 2010, it was decommissioned and placed on a graveyard orbit.

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.

BSAT-4a is a geostationary communications satellite ordered by Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (BSAT) and designed and manufactured by SSL on the SSL 1300 platform, to be stationed on the 110.0° East orbital slot for direct television broadcasting of 4K and 8K Ultra HD resolutions. It was launched on 29 September 2017.

Horizons-1, also known as Galaxy 13, is a geostationary communications satellite operated by Intelsat and SKY Perfect JSAT (JSAT) which was designed and manufactured by Boeing on the BSS-601 platform. It has Ku-band and C-band payload and was used to replace Galaxy 9 at the 127.0° West longitude. It covers North America, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii and Mexico.

The JSAT constellation is a communication and broadcasting satellite constellation formerly operated by JSAT Corporation and currently by SKY Perfect JSAT Group. It has become the most important commercial constellation in Japan, and fifth in the world. It has practically amalgamated all private satellite operators in Japan, with only B-SAT left as a local competitor.

JCSAT-4 was known as JCSAT-R until it was sold to INTELSAT in 2009. It is a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-601 satellite bus. It was originally ordered by JSAT Corporation, which later merged into the SKY Perfect JSAT Group. It has a mixed Ku-band and C-band payload and was used as an on orbit spare.

JCSAT-3 was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-601 satellite bus. It was originally ordered by JSAT Corporation, which later merged into the SKY Perfect JSAT Group. It has a mixed Ku-band and C-band payload and operated on the 128° East longitude until it was replaced by JCSAT-3A.

SBS 6 was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-393 platform. It was originally ordered by Satellite Business Systems, which later sold it to Hughes Communications and was last used by Intelsat. It had a Ku band payload and operated on the 95°W longitude.

Intelsat 33e, also known as IS-33e, is a high throughput (HTS) geostationary communications satellite operated by Intelsat and designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems on the BSS 702MP satellite bus. It is the second satellite of the EpicNG service, and covers Europe, Africa and most of Asia from the 60° East longitude, where it replaced Intelsat 904. Australia habe national geo sat.. It has a mixed C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band payload with all bands featuring wide and C- and Ku- also featuring spot beams.

Intelsat 29e, also known as IS-29e was a high throughput (HTS) geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Boeing Satellite Development Center on the BSS 702MP satellite bus. It is the first satellite of the EpicNG service, and covers North America and Latin America from the 50° West longitude, where it replaced Intelsat 1R. It also replaced Intelsat 805 which was moved from 56.5° West to 169° East. It has a mixed C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band payload with all bands featuring wide and the Ku- also featuring spot beams.

Intelsat 10-02 is a communications satellite operated by Intelsat. Intelsat 10-02 is the first operational communications satellite to have its service life extended by Mission Extension Vehicle-2, while still in service, in 2021.

References

  1. ↑ BSB History by Boeing Archived 20 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ "Boeing Launch Services Mission Record". Boeing.
  3. ↑ Krebs, Gunter D. "Marco Polo 1, 2 (BSB 1, 2) / Sirius 1 / Thor 1"". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  4. ↑ "TSE - BSB 1". www.tbs-satellite.com.
  5. ↑ Clover, Julian (14 January 2013). "Thor II de-orbited after 15 years". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
  6. ↑ Krebs, Gunter D. "Thor 2, 3". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  7. ↑ Ray, Justin (17 June 2004). "Powerful broadcasting satellite goes into orbit". Spaceflight Now.
  8. ↑ "Mission accomplished! Arianespace orbits NSS-12 and THOR 6 34th successful Ariane 5 launch in a row". Arianespace Group. 29 October 2009. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
  9. ↑ "Thor 6 (Intelsat 1W, IS-1W)". Satbeams.com. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.