Astrium’s Eurostar series of geostationary telecommunications satellites gives each customer consistent high-quality operations precisely matching their communications mission requirements. Over 50 Eurostar satellites have been ordered, testimony to their performance and versatility.
Since the first Eurostar was launched in 1990, these satellites have provided over 30 million hours of transponder service time for their operators, which include many of the leading players in the sector, and established a reputation within the global industry for exceptional reliability and exemplary in-orbit performance – seven Eurostar satellites are at present beyond their design lifetime and still operating well, and the only two which have been retired from service themselves exceeded their scheduled mission lifetime. The story is set continue, with another nine Eurostars currently at various stages of development and production.
A series tailored to success
The Eurostar product line offers a highly modular design for a perfect customised fit based on a generic architecture common to all Eurostar satellites, providing the assurance of a robust, proven basis. The series is constantly being improved and upgraded through progressive integration of new technologies. For example, Eurostar was the first communications satellite series to fly fully digital electronics, and more recently, was the first to successfully demonstrate in orbit Lithium-ion batteries, a revolution in communications satellite power.
The latest Eurostar version, the E3000, already chosen by satellite operators Astra SES, Eutelsat, Hispasat, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Paradigm and Telesat and successfully introduced in orbit in 2004, is setting new standards. Its extensive mass and power scalability and enhanced payload accommodation make the E3000 highly efficient single-product solution across the whole scope of communications missions, from conventional mid-range to the most sophisticated.
