Astra 3B set for Friday launch

SES Astra’s latest satellite Astra 3B is scheduled to launch on April 9 having undertaken additional technical checks. The satellite’s original launch was postponed on May 26 due to an anomaly in a launcher subsystem.

The satellite will be launched into space between 18.59 and 19.48 local time from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana. It will be located at 23.5° East where it will deliver DTH services mainly to the Benelux and eastern Europe as well as two-way broadband services across Europe and the Middle East.

Separately, SES World Skies has announced that the SES-1 satellite has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from where it will launch on April 24. It will replace the AMC-2 and AMC-4 satellites at 101° West. It carries 24 C-band transponders and 24 Ku-band transponders of 36 MHz capacity each and has been designed to have a minimum expected service time of 15 years.

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