Amazonas 1 or Hispasat 55W-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 ...

based on the Eurostar 3000 satellite bus and owned by satellites operator Hispasat, based in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

, Spain. It was launched on 5 August 2004, with a launch mass of 4,5 ton, on a

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 Ka ...

Briz-M The Briz-K, Briz-KM and Briz-M (russian: Бриз-К, КM and M meaning ''Breeze-K, KM and M'') are Russian liquid-propellant rocket orbit insertion upper stages manufactured by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and used ...

launcher to be located in the 61º W geostationary position. Amazonas 1 payloads were 36 Ku band

transponders In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight tran ...

that provided communications services in Europe and America, and 27 C band transponders that provided services in America. In 2013 it was relocated to the 36º W position and replaced by Amazonas 3. In March 2016, Hispasat announced that Amazonas 1 would be renamed as Hispasat 55W-1. Finally, the satellite was moved to 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 into ...

and deactivated on 23 June 2017.

References

External links

Official website

Amazonas 1
Spacecraft launched in 2004 Communications satellites Communications satellites in geostationary orbit 2004 in Spain Satellites of Spain Satellites using the Eurostar bus {{Spain-spacecraft-stub