OTTAWA – With an expected launch in late 2015, Telesat said today it has purchased a new multi-mission satellite from European manufacturer Astrium that will replace Telesat’s Telstar 12 satellite at 15 degrees West.
The new state-of-the-art satellite, called Telstar 12 Vantage, will utilize a combination of broad regional beams and more focused high throughput spot beams to increase capacity and offer superior performance for broadband networks on the ground, in the air and at sea while significantly expanding coverage of growing markets in South America, the Atlantic and Europe, Middle East and Africa region. By using Ku-band across all coverage beams, Telstar 12 Vantage will be fully backwards compatible with existing Ku-band terminal equipment, the company said in a press release.
In addition to optimizing coverage of the regions now served by Telstar 12, Telstar 12 Vantage provides new, high capacity coverage of Brazil and East Africa. “Telstar 12 at 15 degrees West has long been valued by the satellite user community for its continental coverage and ability to seamlessly connect the Americas to Europe and the Middle East,” said Dan Goldberg, Telesat’s president and CEO in the press release. “Now with Telstar 12 Vantage, our customers will have access to a combination of broad regional coverage and high throughput beams to support the increased use of more bandwidth intensive applications.”
Telstar 12 VANTAGE will have a 15 year design life and provide up to 52 Ku-band 36 MHz transponder equivalents. The price to build the bird was not disclosed.
