HOT BIRD 7 READY TO LAUNCH

HOT BIRD 7, designed and built by Astrium for Eutelsat, will be launched on November 28th with an Ariane 5 launcher. HOT BIRD 7 will be positioned at 13 degrees East, Eutelsat’s prime orbital location for broadcasting television channels and radio stations to cable and satellite homes in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

With a launch mass of 3.3 tonnes, HOT BIRD 7 has been built entirely, both platform and payload, by Astrium. Based on its well proven Eurostar E2000+ platform, the spacecraft will have a power level of 7.5 kW and a designed lifetime of up to 15 years. Its performance is particularly suited for television broadcasting.

HOT BIRD 7 will have twice the capacity of the HOT BIRD 2, 3, 4 and 5 satellites that were also built by Astrium, and launched between 1996 and 1998. HOT BIRD 7 will allow Eutelsat to optimise its capacity at 13° East. HOT BIRD 7 will replace HOT BIRD 3, releasing the latter to be transferred to a new mission at another orbital location. The augmented capacity offered by HOT BIRD 7 at the 13 degrees East broadcasting position will contribute to raising Eutelsat’s in orbit sparing levels.

HOT BIRD 7 will carry a payload of 40 active Ku-band channels with high power travelling wave tube amplifiers. Two widebeam transmit and receive antennas with dual gridded deployable reflectors will cover Europe, North Africa and the Middle East while two steerable antennas provide spot beams over the Earth’s surface.