Eutelsat 16B, formerly known as Hot Bird 4, Nilesat 103, Atlantic Bird 4, and Eurobird 16, is a

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 ...

owned and 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 retired in 2015 and was moved into 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 ...

above the geostationary belt.

Spacecraft

Hot Bird 4 was a geostationary communications spacecraft of the European

consortium. With a constellation of 5 satellites, the Hot Bird family at 13° East formed one of the largest broadcasting systems in the world. By fourth-quarter 1998, the system was delivering over 320 analogue and digital television channels, as well as radio and multimedia services, to more than 70 million homes connected to a cable network or equipped for satellite (direct-to-home) reception. The Hot Bird satellites provided full coverage of Europe and also took in parts of Africa and Asia, including the entire Middle East. In addition to the basic Widebeam and Superbeam, Hot Bird 3 and Hot Bird 4 were equipped with a Steerable Beam which could be oriented anywhere visible from 13° East, either northern or southern hemispheres. Hot Bird 4 and Hot Bird 5 were the first in the world to be equipped with SKYPLEX for on-board multiplexing of digital signals into a single DVB stream which could be received in the downlink by standard IRDs.

Launch

The satellite was launched on 27 February 1998 at 22:38:00 UTC, from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...

by an Ariane 42P launcher under the name of Hot Bird 4, under Eutelsat's Hot Bird brand.

Orbit

The satellite was positioned in

geostationary orbit 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 ...

at a longitude of 13° East, co-located with the rest of the Hot Bird constellation. Following the launches of

Hot Bird 7A Hot Bird (also styled HOTBIRD) is a group of satellites operated by Eutelsat, located at 13 °E over the equator ( orbital position) and with a transmitting footprint over Asia, Europe, North Africa, Americas and the Middle East. Only digital ...

and

Hot Bird 8 Hot Bird 13B, known as Hot Bird 8 prior to 2012, is a geostationary communications satellite. Operated by Eutelsat, it provides direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting services from geostationary orbit as part of Eutelsat's Hot Bird constellation at ...

in 2006, the satellite was moved to 7° West under the Atlantic Bird brand, and renamed ''Atlantic Bird 4''. During this time, some of the satellite's capacity was leased to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

ian operator

Nilesat Nilesat (; , ''or'' ) is an Egyptian company and the name of a series of Egyptian communications satellites. It was established in 1996 with the purpose of operating Egyptian satellites and their associated mission control center and ground st ...

, who marketed the satellite as ''Nilesat 103''.

Mission

used the satellite, alongside

Nilesat 101 Nilesat 101 is an Egyptian owned geosynchronous communications satellite that was decommissioned in February 2013. Launch Nilesat 101 was launched by an Ariane 4 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on 28 April 1998 at 22:53:00 UTC by Arianespac ...

and

Nilesat 102 Nilesat 102 is an Egyptian owned geosynchronous communications satellite that was launched by an Ariane 44LP rocket from Kourou, French Guiana on August 17, 2000, at 23:16 UTC by the European Space Agency. It was manufactured by the European com ...

which were located in the same orbital slot, to provide

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 ...

digital TV channels, data transmission, turbo internet, and multicasting applications to more than 15 million viewers in the

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

n and

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

region. In April 2009, the satellite was repositioned to 16° East and renamed ''Eurobird 16'' as part of Eutelsat's

Eurobird Eurobird was a series of satellites owned and operated by Eutelsat. The Eurobird satellites provided broadcasting and telecommunication services primarily to the Western and Central European region from orbital positions of 9, 25.5 and 33 degrees ...

brand; it was replaced at 7° West by Atlantic Bird 4A. In March 2012, the satellite was renamed ''Eutelsat 16B'' when the company unified its brand name.

References

External links