Brasilsat B3 is a Brazilian

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 ...

. It was launched on 4 February 1998 by an Ariane 44LP carrier rocket, as part of a dual-payload launch with Inmarsat-3 F5. It was built by

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other pro ...

, based on the

HS-376 The Boeing 376 (sometimes referred to as the BSS-376, and previously as the HS-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 th ...

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are opposed to specially produced satellites. Bus- ...

. It operates by

Star One Star One was an Indian pay television network based in Mumbai. It was launched on 1 November 2004 and was it owned by Star TV and distributed worldwide by Fox International Channels. In November 2006, Star One was launched in the UK on Sky. ...

, a subsidiary of

Embratel Embratel is a major Brazilian telecommunications company headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. The company was the long distance arm of Telebras until it was bought by the U.S. company MCI Communications for 2.65 billion reais during the 1998 break ...

.Kreb's, Gunte
Brasilsat B 1, 2, 3, 4
''Gunter's Space Page''. Retrieved 2016-12-09.

Objectives

The Brasilsat B3 was launched to meet the great demand of the Brazilian market and to bring satellite communication to some cities in the

Amazon Region The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

, which still did not have access to satellite services; these locations were for the first time connected to Brazil and the world. In addition, the B3 unveiled the Brasilsat B2, which has now been used in open or pay-TV broadcasts, telephony services and data transmission.

History

Brasilsat is the name of a group of Brazilian satellites destined to provide communications via satellites, mainly to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. In February 1998, the Brasilsat B3 satellite was launched, currently located at 92 degrees west longitude, in an inclined orbit where it meets the growing demand for telephony from several operators, mainly in the interior of Brazil. The satellite is one of the pioneers to transmit digital signal, with 100% of the programming being displayed in the new system. Brasilsat B3 coverage is national and the channels that were broadcast by the satellite were mostly

free to air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscriptio ...

. Brasilsat B3 was the third satellite launched from Brazil's second generation of communications satellites, which are the result of joint engineering and manufacturing efforts in the US and Brazil. The new series of satellites was called "Brasilsat B'.

, a Brazilian

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s company, signed a contract in August 1990 for the construction of the first two satellites of the series,

Brasilsat B1 Brasilsat B1 is a Brazilian communications satellite launched on August 10, 1994, by an Ariane rocket model 44LP at Guiana Space Centre which is located in Kourou, French Guiana. History It was constructed by the United States and Brazil and is ...

and Brasilsat B2. In December 1995, with new satellites in orbit and unable to meet customer demand, Embratel decided to launch a third satellite, Brasilsat B3. The fourth and last satellite of the series, Brasilsat B4, was ordered in June 1998. Brasilsat B3 was operated directly by Embratel until the end of 2000, when Star One, a subsidiary of that company was formed and assigned to manage the former fleet of Embratel satellites. After the satellite was launched in February 1998, it was placed in the orbital position of 65 degrees west longitude for testing, where it remained until April of the same year when it was moved to 84 degrees west, remained until August 2008, when it was transferred to 75 degrees west and Brasilsat B3 remained in this position in normal geostationary orbit until April 2012, when it was placed in inclined orbit. The satellite was moved to 92 degrees west in January 2013, where it remains currently in inclined orbit. Its replacement in the orbital position of 75 degrees west to continue with the radio and TV broadcasts was the

Star One C3 Star One C3 is a communications satellite operated by Star One, a subsidiary of Embratel. It was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation based on the STAR-2 satellite bus, and was launched on 10 November 2012 21:05 UTC by an Ariane 5ECA carrier roc ...

satellite, which was launched in late 2012, and is covering Brazil and neighboring countries in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

External links

Channels of the Brasilsat B3

Satélite Brasilsat B3

References

{{Orbital launches in 1998 Satellites using the HS-376 bus Star One satellites