EADS Astrium announced today that the W3A spacecraft it designed and built for Eutelsat has successfully performed early operations and is now in geostationary orbit. The satellite is drifting to its intended orbital position to begin more tests before the payload can be brought into operational service.

“This is a major event for EADS Astrium, as W3A is the first of the Eurostar E3000 series,” said Antoine Bouvier, CEO of EADS Astrium. “All over Europe, our teams and our expertise were mobilized to make this event a success.”

The W3A satellite will provide a full range of services in Ku- and Ka-band, to include business communications, Internet and television transmission, over a large area of Europe and Africa. It will be located at the 7 degrees East orbital location. The W3A satellite was launched on March 16^th by a Proton launch vehicle.