Olympus-1 was 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 ...

built by

Astrium Astrium was an aerospace manufacturer subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) that provided civil and military space systems and services from 2006 to 2013. In 2012, Astrium had a turnover of €5.8 billion and 1 ...

(at the time of the construction of the satellite

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

and Matra Marconi Space) and Thales Alenia Space (also at the time Alcatel Espace and Alenia Spazio), along with

Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

and SPAR Aerospace, for 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 (120 ...

. At the time of its launch on 12 July 1989, it was the largest civilian telecommunications satellite ever built, and sometimes known as "LargeSat" or "L-Sat". The satellite had a series of unfortunate accidents in orbit and went out of service on 11/12 August 1993. The first accident was the loss of ability to articulate the satellite's solar arrays. This was later followed by the loss of an on-board gyro during the height of the Perseid meteor shower. The satellite spun out of control and efforts to stabilise it resulted in the expenditure of the majority of its fuel. Subsequently, it was moved to a GEO

disposal 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 into ...

and was put out of commission. The same manufacturers made the Alphabus satellite bus, using lessons learned from the Eurostar and Spacebus programs, and acting very much in the same way as Olympus. However, only one was constructed for Inmarsat ( Inmarsat-4A F4).

References

{{reflist

External links

"The sad story of Olympus 1"

ESA press release, 26 August 1993

NASA Satellite Communications Systems and Technology, July 1993 Communications satellites Derelict satellites orbiting Earth European Space Agency satellites