Türksat 4A is a Turkish communications satellite, operated by Türksat. It was constructed by

Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...

(MELCO) of Japan, based on the MELCO DS2000 satellite bus, and was launched by the American-Russian joint-venture company International Launch Services (ILS) atop a Russian Proton-M space launch vehicle on February 14, 2014, at 21:09:03 from Site 81/24 of 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 ...

in Kazakhstan. The in-orbit delivery contract for the satellite was signed in March 2011. In the scope of the contract, Turkish engineers were trained in the facilities of MELCO in Japan. During the official visit of Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

to Japan, the satellite was handed over by the Mitsubishi Electric to the Turkish officials in a ceremony on January 8, 2014. The initially planned launch date of Türksat 4A in November 2013 was postponed to February 2014 due to the suspension of the Proton-M launches because of problems, which arose on December 8, 2012. Türksat 4A is part of the Turksat series of satellites, and was placed in a temporary

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 50°E, where it will remain around three months. During this period, orbital and subsystem tests will be conducted. Thenafter, the satellite will be transferred to 42°E to provide telecommunication and direct TV broadcasting services over a wide geographic region between west of China and east of England spanning Turkey, as well as Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Right after the satellite reached orbit, mission control and operational support was taken over by

Gölbaşı Ground Station The Gölbaşı Ground Station ( tr, Gölbaşı Uydu Yer Kontrol Merkezi) is a ground station designed as a terminal for telecommunication with Türksat spacecraft. Owned and operated by the state-owned telecommunications provider Türksat company, ...

in Ankara, which will conduct performance tests around month long. The first signal from the satellite is expected to arrive 9 hours and 13 minutes after the launch. Türksat 4A has a mass of approximately and an expected on-orbit life time of 15 years. It will consist of 28 K_u band, two K_a band and an undisclosed number of C band transponders. The use of K_a band will allow higher bandwidth communication, and thus reaching the southern regions of the

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in Africa that was not possible with former Türksat satellites. Türksat 4A will enable to cut cost of internet access, and will be also available for military-purpose broadcasting. It is expected that Türksat 4A will increase the communications capacity of Turkey three-fold.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turksat 4A Satellites using the Spacebus bus Satellites using the DS2000 bus Communications satellites of Turkey Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Spacecraft launched in 2014

See also

References