Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexas ready for launch
January 19, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Built by Thales-Alenia Space, Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus satellite is ready at Cape Canaveral for launch. The satellite left Nice Airport on the Cote d’Azur having been delivered from Thales’ facility at Cannes.
SpaceX will be handling the launch currently scheduled for February 1st.
Amazonas Nexus is a 4500 kgs satellite and the launch will place the craft into its geostationary transfer orbit and towards its position at 61 degree Weest.
This new High Throughput Satellite (HTS) will enable Hispasat to access new customers and markets, by delivering high capacity mobility services to the air and maritime transport sectors, among others. In addition, it will continue the provision of services to the current Hispasat customers that use the capacities of Amazonas 2.
Hispasat says: “Amazonas Nexus features, as its main novelty, a new generation Digital Transparent Processor (DTP), a technological breakthrough that is essential to increase the geographical flexibility of the mission to respond to eventual evolutions with respect to the initially envisaged commercial scenario. Thanks to this element, the satellite payload will be digitally processed allowing to assign in-orbit the required capacities at any time, providing the satellite with great resilience to the evolution of the communications market, both in the field of connectivity and data and in the field of contents transmission. The advanced design, HTS capacity and versatility of Amazonas Nexus make it the most efficient satellite in Hispasat’s fleet.”
The new satellite will have coverage over the whole American continent, the Atlantic corridors North and South (air and maritime traffic area) and Greenland, and will enable the provision of telecommunication services in Ku-band. Amazonas Nexus marks the start of a new generation of satellites in Hispasat’s fleet with an architecture that also features Ka-band capacity to optimise communications between the gateways and the satellite, allowing to multiply the total on-board capacity available for commercial use, thus improving the capacity unitary cost with respect to conventional satellites.
Amazonas Nexus is the third satellite ordered by Hispasat to Thales Alenia Space, after Hispasat 1C & 1D, the seventh satellite based on Spacebus NEO platform and the fifth embarking a digital transparent processor of fifth generation.