SBS 2 was a geostationary

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 ...

designed and manufactured by

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(now

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 p ...

) on the

HS-376 The Boeing 376 (sometimes referred to as the BSS-376, and previously as the HS-376) is a communications satellite bus introduced in 1978 by Hughes Space and Communications Company. It was a spin-stabilized bus that the manufacturer claims was th ...

platform. It was ordered by

Satellite Business Systems Satellite Business Systems (SBS) was a company founded by IBM, Aetna, COMSAT (and later wholly purchased by IBM and then subsequently sold to MCI), that provided private professional satellite communications through its SBS fleet of FSS geosy ...

, which later sold it to

Hughes Communications 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 had a K_u band payload and operated on the 117°W longitude.

Satellite description

The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by

on the

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- ...

. It had a launch mass of , a geostationary orbit and a 7-year design life.

History

On September 24, 1981, SDS 2 was finally launched by a

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-3910 PAM-D from Cape Canaveral at 23:09 UTC. In April 1996, SDS 2 finally decommissioned and put on 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 ...

Satellite description

History

References

See also