TIM FURNISS / LONDON
Alcatel Space and Boeing Satellite Systems are to build Star One and Superbird
Alcatel Space of France and Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) have won contracts to build communications satellites for customers in Brazil and Japan.
Brazil's Star One satellite communications network has ordered a 4.1t, 44Ku-band transponder satellite from Alcatel. The satellite, based on Alcatel's Spacebus 3000B3 platform, will be launched into a location at 67íW in geostationary orbit in 2003-2004.
Arianespace is believed to be the favoured launch company for the Brazilian satellite. Star One is the former satellite unit of Brazil's Embratel. It is now 20% owned by Luxembourg's Société Européenne des Satellites, which has already booked two launch contracts from Arianespace for unidentified payloads.
Embratel, which operated Brazilsat A and B series satellites built by BSS (formerly Hughes Space and Communications), also used Arianespace exclusively for launches. BSS has won a contract from Japan's Space Communications to build another Superbird satellite.
Superbird 6, which will be launched in 2003, is the third to be built by the company. The BSS 601-based satellite will be equipped with 23Ku-band transponders and located at 156íE in geostationary orbit.
Meanwhile, BSS has completed the design of nine custom-made integrated circuits for the three-satellite Space-way Hughes Network Systems high-speed, broadband satellite system for North America, which will start operations in 2003. Spaceway will use digital signal processors (DSPs), active phased array-antenna technology and packet-switching.
The Boeing integrated circuits will be used with IBM DSPs providing "the most powerful spaceborne signal processor to orbit the Earth", says BSS. It is capable of 50 trillion operations per second, equal to 10,000 Pentium III computers.
Source: Flight International
