THAICOM 8 ( th, ไทยคม 8) is a Thai

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

of the

THAICOM Thaicom Public Company Limited is a Thai satellite operator and provider of satellite and telecommunication services since 1991. The company operates a fleet of currently four satellites covering Asia, Oceania, and Africa. Thaicom is a subsidiar ...

series, operated by Thaicom Public Limited Company, a subsidiary of

INTOUCH In Touch or InTouch may refer to: *Intouch Holdings, a Thai holding company * ''In Touch'' (radio series), a programme on BBC Radio 4 *In Touch Ministries, a Christian Evangelical organization *''In Touch Weekly'', a celebrity and lifestyle magazin ...

, and is considered to be the 8th

satellite headquartered in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Overview

Manufactured by

Orbital ATK Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) was a sector (business segment) of Northrop Grumman from 2018 through 2019. It was formed from Orbital ATK Inc. a company which resulted from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alli ...

, the THAICOM 8

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 ...

will serve Thailand, India, and Africa from the 78.5° East geostationary location. It is equipped with 24 active

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 ...

transponder 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 ...

s for sending

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

signals through the satellite to residential dwellings.

Launch

THAICOM 8 was approved for launch into orbit on 18 March 2014. It was launched at the Cape Canaveral

SLC-40 Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), previously Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) is a launch pad for rockets located at the north end of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The launch pad was used by the United States Air Force for 55 Titan III ...

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 ...

on 27 May 2016, by SpaceX. The first stage of the

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

used to launch THAICOM 8 successfully landed on ASDS - Of Course I Still Love You. It was the fourth successful landing of a

Falcon 9 Full Thrust Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2, with variants Block 1 to Block 5) is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. Designed in 2014–2015, Falcon 9 Full Thrust began launch operations ...

Reuse of the Falcon 9 First Stage

The B1023 first stage was later converted into a Falcon Heavy side booster, which performed a static fire test in calendar-week 20 of 2017. This first stage then continued to land again at the

Landing Zone 1 Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2, also known as LZ-1 and LZ-2 respectively, are landing facilities on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for recovering components of SpaceX's VTVL reusable launch vehicles. LZ-1 and LZ-2 were built on land le ...

at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during the Falcon Heavy maiden test flight.

References

External links

THAICOM 8 Information

THAICOM 8 mission overview at SpaceX

SpaceX Launch Webcast

{{Orbital launches in 2016 Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Thaicom satellites SpaceX commercial payloads Spacecraft launched in 2016 2016 in Thailand Satellites using the GEOStar bus

Overview

Launch

Reuse of the Falcon 9 First Stage

See also

References

External links