Spaceway-2 is part of

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

's constellation of direct broadcast satellites. The satellite was launched via an

Arianespace Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It undertakes the operation and marketing of the Ariane programme. The company offers a number of different launch vehicles: the heavy ...

Ariane 5 ECA rocket from

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 ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

on 16 November 2005. Its operational position is in geosynchronous orbit above the equator at 99.2° West longitude. Spaceway-2 is a

Boeing 702 Boeing 702 is a communication satellite bus family designed and manufactured by the Boeing Satellite Development Center, and flown from the late-1990s into the 2020s. It covers satellites massing from to with power outputs from 3 to 18 kW ...

-model satellite with a 12-year

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

. It is expected to support

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 ...

customers with its K_a-band communications payload. Although Spaceway-2 was originally built by Boeing to be used for broadband Internet access via

Hughes Network Systems Hughes Network Systems, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar. It is headquartered in Germantown, Maryland and provides satellite internet service. HughesNet has over 1.3 million subscribers in the Americas. History Hughes Communications ...

, it has been retrofitted to deliver HD local channels (

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, and

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

) to numerous markets nationwide. On 19 April 2006, the satellite was delivered to DirecTV's control after successful on-orbit testing. Spaceway-2 immediately started broadcasting HD locals to DirecTV customers in eight more markets: Minneapolis, Minnesota;

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

and

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

;

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

;

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

; Kansas City, Missouri; Columbus, Ohio; and

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. Satellites named T10 (launched in 2007) and T11 (launched in 2008), constructed by Boeing, also for use in high-definition television, are bent-pipe K_a-band satellites instead of regenerative satellites, and are being used to continue the expansion of DirecTV's HD services. Spaceway-2 was originally envisioned as a global K_a-band communications system. Boeing retrofitted the Spaceway-2 satellite for bent-pipe K_a-band communications for use in

and disabled the regenerative on-board processing of the original system that was to be used for the

Spaceway The Spaceway system was originally envisioned as a global Ka-band communications system by Hughes Electronics. When the project to build the system was taken over by Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of Hughes Electronics, it was transformed ...

broadband satellite communications. T11 is co-located with Spaceway-2 satellites in order to use the 500 MHz of unused spectrum for HDTV broadcasting. This spectrum was originally intended for the broadband internet capabilities of the two Spaceway satellites which were disabled by

at the request of DirecTV.

References

External links

Arianespace Spaceway 2 Launch Info

Satellites using the BSS-702 bus Communications satellites in geostationary orbit DirecTV {{US-spacecraft-stub

See also

References

External links