Latest News

Third time lucky for Turksat 2A

By Staff Writer | January 17, 2001

      On the third attempt of last week Turksat 2A, which was previously called Eurasiasat 1, was launched into space from French Guyana and placed into orbit by an Ariane 4 launcher on January 11.

      The satellite is owned by Eurasiasat SAM, a Monaco-based joint venture of Turk Telekom (75 per cent) and Alcatel Space (25 per cent).

      The satellite will be positioned at 42 degrees East and will cover Europe, the Middle East and south western Asia. It carries 32 Ku-band transponders, 12 for fixed services (FSS) and 20 for broadcast services (BSS).

      Turk Telekom will use the FSS transponders to support its terrestrial networks, particularly for Internet delivery and VSAT applications. The BSS transponders will be used for broadcasting within Turkey and to countries with large Turkish-speaking communities.

      Traffic can be switched between the FSS and BSS transponders to meet changing customer needs over the satellite’s 15-year design life. About 90 per cent of Turksat 2A’s capacity has already been booked, said Alcatel Space.

      This flight had experienced several delays, beginning last December when a quick fix was performed on the launcher’s payload fairing. Subsequently, Eurasiasat 1 was removed from the launcher at the client’s request to allow for technical troubleshooting on the spacecraft. After being rescheduled for a January 8 liftoff, Flight 137 was postponed two more days due to wind conditions at the Spaceport.