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AsiaSat-9 arrives at launch site

August 31, 2017

By Chris Forrester

AsiaSat-9 has been delivered to the ILS/Proton launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Built by Space Systems/Loral, the satellite will replace AsiaSat-4 at 122 degrees East.

Russia’s Roscosmos space agency says that the satellite will launch on Sept 28th, weather permitting.

AsiaSat-9 will provide DTH broadcasts, as well as additional Ku-band capacity for new markets including Myanmar and Indonesia.

With 32 Ku- and 28 C-band transponders, and a regional Ka-band payload, AsiaSat 9 carries the world’s first dedicated Ku-band Myanmar beam, new high-powered Ku-band beams for Indonesia and Mongolia, in addition to two enhanced Ku-band beams serving Australasia and East Asia.  These five Ku-band beams are equipped with cross-strap beam switching capability to provide flexible coverage.

“AsiaSat and SSL have a history of working together closely to broaden the availability of high quality satellite service in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Dario Zamarian, Group President of SSL. “AsiaSat 9 incorporates multiple technology advances that pack more power, bandwidth, and flexibility into the satellite for the improved coverage and higher communication rates that AsiaSat needs to meet market demand. With the satellite now in Baikonur, we look forward to working with both AsiaSat and ILS to prepare it for launch.”

AsiaSat 9 is the operator’s most powerful satellite, designed to deliver significantly improved power and higher bandwidth usage to generate higher efficiency for customers’ services. This is enabled by innovative and unique features including Asia’s highest powered 110 watts C-band TWTA, special filter design to achieve higher throughput up to 23% enhancement across wide C-band coverage, star tracker onboard the spacecraft for higher pointing accuracy, along with hall effect thrusters to provide higher stability and more efficient satellite operation.

Categories: Articles, DTH/Satellite