Intelsat 33e, also known as IS-33e, is a high throughput (HTS)

geostationary A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitude ...

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 ...

operated by

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...

and designed and manufactured by Boeing Space Systems on the BSS 702MP

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 ...

. It is the second satellite of the Epic^NG service, and covers

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and most of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

from the 60° East longitude, where it replaced

Intelsat 904 Intelsat 904 (or IS-904) is a communications satellite operated by Intelsat. Launch Intelsat 904 was launched by an Ariane 4 rocket from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou, French Guiana, at 06:59 UTC on February 23, 2002. Capacity and coverage Th ...

. It has a mixed C-band,

Ku-band The Ku band () is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under" (originally german: Kurz-unten), because it is the lower part of the ori ...

and

Ka-band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centime ...

payload with all bands featuring wide and C- and Ku- also featuring spot beams.

Satellite description

Intelsat 33e was designed and manufactured by

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

on the Boeing 702MP satellite bus. It has a launch mass of and a design life of more than 15 years. When stowed for launch, the satellite measures . It is powered by two

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

, with four panels each, of triple-junction

GaAs Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated circui ...

solar cells. The 702MP platform was designed to generate between 6 kW and 12 kW, but Intelsat 33e is designed to generate 13 kW at the end of its design life. Its payload is the second high throughput Epic^NG deployment. The Epic^NG is characterized by the implementation of frequency reuse due to a mix of frequency and polarization in small spot beams. Not only applied to the classical

High-throughput satellite High-throughput satellite (HTS) is a communications satellite that provides more throughput than a classic FSS satellite (at least twice, though usually by a factor of 20 or more) for the same amount of allocated orbital spectrum, thus significan ...

(HTS) Ka-band, but also applying the same technique in Ku-band and C-band. The Epic^NG series also keep the use of wide beams to offer high throughput and broadcast capabilities in the same satellite. In the case of Intelsat 33e, the C-band side has 20

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 trans ...

with a total downlink bandwidth of 2,670 MHz. The spot beams offer high bandwidth for

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, and a wide beam covers

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

. The Ku-band has 249

transponder equivalent A communications satellite's transponder is the series of interconnected units that form a communications channel between the receiving and the transmitting antennas. It is mainly used in satellite communication to transfer the received signals. ...

for a total downlink bandwidth of 9,194 MHz. The Ku-band spot beams cover Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, while a wide beam can broadcast to Europe, Middle East and Asia. The Ka-band payload has 450 MHz of bandwidth on a global beam centered at its position.

History

In July 2009,

became the first customer of the Boeing 702MP satellite bus, when it placed an order for four spacecraft,

Intelsat 21 Intelsat 21 is a communications satellite manufactured by Boeing Defense, Space & Security, Boeing Space Systems (BSS) for the Intelsat, Intelsat Corporation, based on the Boeing 702, BSS-702MP satellite bus. It was launched on 19 August 2012 a ...

Intelsat 22 Intelsat 22, is a communications satellite in geostationary orbit and constructed by Boeing Defense, Space & Security, Boeing Space Systems for the Intelsat, Intelsat Corporation. The satellite was planned to be located at 72° East Longitude o ...

Intelsat 27 Intelsat 27 was an American communications satellite which was to have been operated by Intelsat. Intended as a replacement for Intelsat 805, it was destroyed after the rocket carrying it to orbit fell into the Pacific Ocean 56 seconds after la ...

and the first Epic^NG satellite,

Intelsat 29e Intelsat 29e, also known as IS-29e was a high throughput (HTS) geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Boeing Satellite Development Center on the BSS 702MP satellite bus. It is the first satellite of the EpicNG ser ...

. In May 2013, Intelsat made a second order for an additional four Epic^NG satellites, the first of which would be Intelsat 33e. On 15 July 2016, Senior Space Program Managers Richard Laurie and Brian Sing blogged that they had been on the Boeing factory overseeing the transport preparations for Intelsat 33e to

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

. There it would join another Intelsat satellite, Intelsat 36, for integration on the Ariane 5 ECA launcher, which was expected to launch on 24 August 2016. On 22 July 2016, Intelsat announced that Intelsat 33e had arrived to the Guiana Space Center for launch preparations. It also announced not only communication but aeronautical and maritime mobility clients that were expecting the satellite service. On 27 July 2016, it was explained that the satellite had traveled by truck from the factory to an airport in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where it was loaded in an

Antonov 124 The Antonov An-124 Ruslan (; russian: Антонов Ан-124 Руслан, , Ruslan; NATO reporting name: Condor) is a large, strategic airlift, four-engined aircraft that was designed in the 1980s by the Antonov design bureau in the Ukraini ...

. It flew to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

for a refuelling stop and then flew straight to

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 ...

airport. At the French launch site, even though Intelsat is the owner of the two passengers of the Ariane 5 ECA VA 232 flight, they have separate launch teams. Each satellite is built by a different manufacturer, and it has a different supervisor team within Intelsat. On 24 August 2016, at 22:16:01 UTC, after a slight delay due to a rocket issue, the Ariane 5 ECA VA-232 flight launched from

Guiana Space Center The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...

ELA-3 ELA-3 (french: Ensemble de Lancement Ariane 3, lit=Ariane Launch Complex 3), is a launch pad and associated facilities at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana. ELA-3 is operated by Arianespace as part of the expendable launch system f ...

, with Intelsat 33e and Intelsat 36. At 22:44 UTC, Intelsat 33e separated from the rocket's upper stage. After 41 minutes of flight, both satellites had separated successfully. Intelsat confirmed that it had received the satellites signals as expected after separation. Arianespace estimated the insertion orbit as 248.7 km × 35,858 km × 5.98°, very close to the target of 249.0 km × 35,879 km × 6.00°. On 9 September 2016, Intelsat announced that due to a malfunction in the

LEROS-1c Leros ( el, Λέρος) is a Greek island and municipality in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea. It lies (171 nautical miles) from Athens's port of Piraeus, from which it can be reached by an 9-hour ferry ride or by a 45-minute flight fr ...

primary thruster, it would require more time for orbit rising and thus the service date had been moved from the last quarter of 2016 to the first of 2017. On 22 September 2016, insurance officials estimated that the main propulsion failure would not reduce the on orbit life of the spacecraft more than 18 months. This could translate to an insurance claim by Intelsat of around 10% (1.5 years) of the satellite service life, which could have a value close to US$40 million. Intelsat 33e entered service on 29 January 2017, three months later than planned. In August 2017, another propulsion issue appeared, leading to larger-than-expected propellant usage to control the satellite attitude during the north/south station keeping maneuvers. This issue reduced the orbital life-time by about 3.5 years.

References

{{Orbital launches in 2016 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellites using the BSS-702 bus Spacecraft launched in 2016 Intelsat satellites Ariane commercial payloads