Europe’s biggest satellite operator, Eutelsat, launched a new telecommunications satellite Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center on a new Atlas III A rocket, launch operator International Launch Services said.
Eutelsat’s W4 satellite will join the company’s fleet of 15 satellites already in orbit.
The satellite will provide direct digital television services to Russia, through its Russian partner Media Most, while sub-Saharan Africa receive Internet access and digital television through a system of transponders.
The 3.1-tonne satellite was built by French company Alcatel Espace, and will first placed in orbit provisionally at 45,800 kilometers (24,730 miles) apogee and 195 kilometers (105.4 miles) perigee before settling into position at 36 degrees longitude east, close to Eutelsat’s SESAT satellite.
W4 was launched by the new Lockheed Martin rocket Atlas III A, propelled by a Russian NPO Energomash RD-180 engine.
“The international partnerships represented by this launch effort are truly symbolic of today’s global marketplace and of the future of commercial space endeavors,” said Mark Albrecht, president of launch operator ILS.
Eutelsat gathers telecommunications firms from 47 European countries. When it was first set up in 1977, virtually every corporation was state-owned.
The onward march of privatization within Europe means that most of the stakeholders are now out of state hands.
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