Eutelsat Konnect is a

geostationary 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 altitude ...

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 ...

operated by

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellit ...

. The satellite was designed and manufactured by

Thales Alenia Space Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufacture ...

on the Spacebus NEO 100 platform, and was launched on 16 January 2020 on an

Ariane 5 ECA Ariane 5 is a European heavy-lift space launch vehicle developed and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guiana. It has been used to deliver payloads into ...

. The satellite provides

broadband internet In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

and communications coverage to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

History

In October 2015, Eutelsat ordered a next-generation communications satellite originally named the African Broadband Satellite. The satellite was ordered as part of Eutelsat's move to expand in the African communications market. Thales Alenia Space contracted launch on an Ariane 5 ECA, co-manifested with another payload as is usual, GSAT-30.

Spacecraft

Eutelsat Konnect is built on the Spacebus NEO 100 platform, an all-electric satellite bus designed with funding and support from the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

(ESA) and French agency, CNES. In addition to providing more communications capacity, the new platform provided significant manufacturing cost reductions compared to previous geostationary satellites. Eutelsat Konnect carries a high-throughput Ka-band communications payload, providing 75

Gbps In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

of capacity through 65 spot beams.

Launch

On 16 January 2020 at 21:05:00 UTC, Eutelsat Konnect was launched to on an

. The launch was shared with

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...

(ISRO) communications satellite GSAT-30. Approximately 28 minutes after launch, Eutelsat Konnect separated from the SYLDA fairing and was released into

geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellite, Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into ...

(GTO).

References

External links

* {{official website, 1=https://europe.konnect.com/en-GB/ Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Spacecraft launched in 2020 Satellites of France Ariane commercial payloads