Astra 5°E is the name for the Astra

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...

s co-located at the 5° east position in the

Clarke Belt A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitud ...

which are owned and operated by

SES SES, S.E.S., Ses and similar variants can refere to: Business and economics * Socioeconomic status * Scottish Economic Society, a learned society in Scotland * SES, callsign of the TV station SES/RTS (Mount Gambier, South Australia) * SES S.A., ...

based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. 5° east is one of the major TV satellite positions serving Europe (the others being at 19.2° east, 28.2° east, 13° east, and 23.5° east). The Astra satellites at 5° east provide for services

downlink In a telecommunications network, a link is a communication channel that connects two or more devices for the purpose of data transmission. The link may be a dedicated physical link or a virtual circuit that uses one or more physical links or shar ...

ing to the Nordic countries, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa in the 11.70 GHz-12.75 GHz range of the K_u band, and at present the

Astra 4A Astra 4A is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES at the Astra 5°E orbital slot providing digital television and radio broadcasts, data, and interactive services to Nordic countries, eastern Europe and sub-Saharan ...

and the

SES-5 SES-5 (also known as Astra 4B and Sirius 5) is a commercial geostationary communication satellite operated by SES S.A. It was launched on 9 July 2012. The launch was arranged by International Launch Services (ILS). History In October 2008, S ...

are regularly operational at this position. Satellites at 5°E were originally operated by

Swedish Space Corporation The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) provides space subsystems, space and satellite operations, rocket and balloon systems including experiment equipment, launch services, aerospace engineering services as well as airborne maritime surveillance s ...

(SSC), and then

Nordic Satellite AB SES Sirius, formerly called Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) was the owner and operator of the two Sirius satellites, which provide the Nordic countries and the Baltic states, with TV, radio, data and communications solutions. The company is today entir ...

(NSAB, itself 50% owned by SSC) before SES took full control of the position and the satellites in 2010, renaming the

Sirius 4 Sirius was a constellation of communications satellites operated at 5.0° East in geostationary orbit (GEO) by NSAB (later SES Sirius, and now a non-autonomous part of SES S.A., owner and operator of the Astra satellites). They carried digi ...

satellite to Astra 4A and later adding its own

Astra 1E Astra 1E is one of the Astra communications satellites in geostationary orbit owned and operated by SES. It was launched in October 1995 to the Astra 19.2°E orbital slot initially to provide digital television and radio for direct-to-home (DT ...

to the group followed by the SES-5.

Satellite craft in use

Current

(previously called

) *

(previously called Astra 4B and Sirius 5)

Tele-X Tele-X was the first communications satellite serving the Nordic countries. It was launched with an Ariane 2 launch vehicle from Kourou, French Guiana, on 2 April 1989. On 16 January 1998, its fuel was exhausted and it was moved into graveyar ...

(operated by Swedish Space Corporation - retired) *

Sirius 1 Sirius Systems Technology was a personal computer manufacturer in Scotts Valley, California. It was founded in 1980 by Chuck Peddle and Chris Fish, formerly of MOS Technology and capitalized by Walter Kidde Inc. In late 1982 Sirius acquired Victo ...

(operated by NSAB - retired) * Sirius 2/Astra 5A (operated by NSAB - failed in orbit) * Sirius 3 *

Astra 1C Astra 1C was a geostationary communications satellite launched in 1993 by the Société Européenne des Satellites ( SES), now SES Astra. The satellite remained in service until 2011 and is now derelict. History Astra 1C was the third commu ...

(retired) *

Astra 2D Astra 2D is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by Société Européenne des Satellites (SES), and located at 28.2° East in the geostationary orbit until June 2015. It is a Hughes Space and Communications HS-376HP ...

Market

Astra 5°E is SES' position for

direct-to-home Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

(DTH) broadcasting to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, as well as Eastern European and Baltic countries including Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, and sub-Saharan Africa. Over 460 TV, radio and interactive channels (including 9

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

stations serve over 21 million direct-to-home,

SMATV SMATV is Single Master Antenna Television (or Satellite Master Antenna Television), The purpose of SMATV is for supplying and controlling the number and type of channels to multiple televisions. Not only TV channels but FM channels as well. It prov ...

and cable homes via the 5°E position. Cable distribution to head-ends, contribution links, data services, and broadband capacity are also provided Astra 4A provides DTH coverage to multiple African markets with a dedicated K_u band beam from a single orbital position, which eliminates the need for dual-illumination from separate beams. This position also provides uplink and downlink within the African footprint, and inter-connectivity between Africa and Europe, so that DTH broadcasting out of Europe is available without the need for expensive fibre links. SES-5 provides two Ku-band beams for DTH services, one for the Nordic and Baltic countries and one serving Sub-Saharan Africa. It also has C-band capacity on a global coverage beam and a hemispheric coverage for Europe, Africa and the Middle East to deliver broadband, maritime communications, GSM backhaul, and VSAT applications. SES-5 also carries a hosted

L-band The L band is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz). This is at the top end of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, at the lower en ...

payload for the European Commission's

European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) developed by the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL on behalf of the European Commission. Currently, it supplements the GPS by repor ...

(EGNOS).

Capacity and reach

the Astra satellites at 5° east broadcast on 121 transponders (28 C-Band, 3 Ka-band and 90 Ku-band) to 51.5 million households (34.1 million via

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

, 10.7 million via

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

and 6.7 million direct to home

satellite dish A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radi ...

es).

History

The Astra 5°E orbital position was originally the

Direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

orbital position allocated to Sweden with Swedish Satellite Corporation's Tele-X (launched 1989) the first TV satellite at this position. In 1994, Tele-X was joined by Sirius 1, bought by NSAB from

BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

in 1993 after Sky Television's merger with

British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, headquartered in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. They started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with ...

, and moved to 5°E from its original orbital position at 30°West as

Marcopolo 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 ...

1. Sirius 1 was later joined at 5° east by Sirius 2 (1997) and then Sirius 3 (1998), with the most recent addition, Sirius 4, launched in November 2007. Tele-X was retired to a

graveyard orbit A graveyard orbit, also called a junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an orbit that lies away from common operational orbits. One significant graveyard orbit is a supersynchronous orbit well beyond geosynchronous orbit. Some satellites are moved int ...

in 1998. Sirius 1 was moved to 13° west and renamed Sirius W in 2000 and retired in 2003. In 2008 Sirius 2 was moved to 31.5°E and renamed Astra 5A but in January 2009, the spacecraft suffered a failure and was withdrawn from service some four years ahead of its expected end of life. Sirius 3 is in inclined orbit at 51.2° east. In 2000, SES bought the 50% shareholding in NSAB owned by Teracom and Tele Danmark and in 2003 increased that holding to 75%, renaming the company SES Sirius AB. In 2008 Astra acquired further shares to take its shareholding in SES Sirius to 90% and in March 2010 took full control of the company. In June 2010, the affiliate company was renamed SES Astra and the Sirius 4 satellite renamed Astra 4A. SES Astra is now a non-autonomous part of SES. Astra 4A was originally the designation given in 2007 to just part of the Sirius 4 satellite (six transponders of the FSS Africa beam) owned and operated by SES Sirius. From June 2010, the Astra 4A designation has applied to the entire satellite. In September 2010,

was moved to 5° east to provide further backup for Astra 4A until the launch of

(Astra 4B). Astra 1E was originally launched to the primary Astra position of 19.2°E but, prior to its move to 5°E, since October 2007 it had been used at 23.5°E to provide additional capacity before the launch of Astra 3B to that position in May 2010. On July 9, 2012 SES-5 was successfully launched from

Baikonur Baikonur ( kk, Байқоңыр, ; russian: Байконур, translit=Baykonur), formerly known as Leninsk, is a city of republic significance in Kazakhstan on the northern bank of the Syr Darya river. It is currently leased and administered ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

and on September 17, 2012 it started commercial operations at 5°E. SES-5 was originally named Sirius 5, but renamed to Astra 4B in 2010 and then to SES-5 in 2011. In July 2015 Astra 2D arrived, inactive, at the Astra 5°E position, moved from

Astra 28.2°E Astra 28.2°E is the name for the group of Astra communications satellites co-located at the 28.2° East position in the Clarke Belt that are owned and operated by SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. It is one of the major TV satellite positions s ...

where it had served all its active life (2001-2013). In October 2015, Astra 2D left this position but returned in July 2018, only to leave Astra 5°E again in January 2020 (to move to 57.2°E).Real Time Satellite Tracking And Predictions
Accessed March 31, 2020

References

External links

Astra consumers/viewers' websiteOfficial SES trade/industry siteSES guide to channels broadcasting on Astra satellites

SES fleet information and mapSwedish Space Corporation website
{{DEFAULTSORT:005 Astra 005.0 E SES S.A.