Telstar 14 or Estrela do Sul 1 (Southern Star 1) is a commercial

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 ...

in the

Telstar Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the fir ...

series built by

Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...

(SS/L) for

Telesat Telesat, formerly Telesat Canada, is a Canadian satellite communications company founded on May 2, 1969. The company is headquartered in Ottawa. History Telesat began as Telesat Canada, a Canadian Crown corporation created by an Act of Parli ...

to provide Ku-band communications to

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 southe ...

and the Southern United States. Estrela do Sul 1 was launched by

Sea Launch Sea Launch was a multinational—Norway, Russia, Ukraine, United States—spacecraft launch company founded in 1995 that provided orbital launch services from 1999–2014. The company used a mobile maritime launch platform for equatorial lau ...

using a

Zenit-3SL The Zenit-3SL is an expendable carrier rocket operated by Sea Launch. First flown in 1999, it has been launched 36 times, with three failures and one partial failure. It is a member of the Zenit family of rockets, and is built by the Yuzhnoye Des ...

carrier rocket on 11 Jan 2004 for

geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

at 63 degrees west. The North

solar array A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and co ...

failed to open after launch, limiting the mission effectiveness. The president of SS/L later said images of the satellite in orbit showed massive damage to the affected array, indicating that an explosion had occurred during launch. The satellite entered service with reduced capacity (17 transponders) and reduced life span of 7 years with the jammed panel. Estrela do Sul 1 / Telstar 14 and Estrela do Sul 2 / Telstar 14R are built around the

Loral 1300 The SSL 1300, previously the LS-1300 and the FS-1300, is a satellite bus produced by Maxar Technologies. Total broadcast power ranges from 5 to 25 kW, and the platform can accommodate from 12 to 150 transponders. The SSL 1300 is a modular platf ...

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-d ...

, and have launch mass of around 5000 kg.

Launch

The

Telstar 14R Telstar 14R, also known as Estrela do Sul 2 (Southern Star 2) is a commercial communications satellite in the Telstar series built by Space Systems/Loral for Telesat to provide Ku-band communications to South America and the Southern United Stat ...

replacement was launched in May 2011 from the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome ( kk, Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы, translit=Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy, ; russian: Космодром Байконур, translit=Kosmodrom Baykonur, ) is a spaceport in an area of southern Kazakhstan leased to R ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

aboard an

International Launch Services International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services. Proton launches take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan while Angara is l ...

Proton-M The Proton-M, (Протон-М) GRAU index 8K82M or , is an expendable Russian heavy-lift launch vehicle derived from the Soviet-developed Proton. It is built by Khrunichev, and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kaz ...

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

. This replacement satellite,

experienced the same problem, with its north solar array failing to open. The Telstar 14R replacement satellite is in service, despite that deployment failure.

References

External links

* http://www.telesat.com/satellite-fleet/telstar/telstar-14r * http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telstar-14r.htm * http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/25telstar14r/index.html * http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/05/live-ils-proton-m-launch-with-telstar-14r/ {{Orbital launches in 2004 Telstar satellites Spacecraft launched in 2004 Satellites using the SSL 1300 bus

Launch

See also

References

External links