Hispasat's Amazonas 5 is already in space

Launched aboard a Proton Breeze M rocket from Baikonur, the new satellite that will occupy the orbital position of 61º West will provide a wide range of telecommunications services to the Latin American market.

Hispasat, the Spanish telecommunications satellite operator, has successfully launched, at 9:23 p.m. last night, Spanish time, its eleventh satellite, Amazonas 5, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, aboard the Proton Breeze M launch vehicle of the International Launch Services (ILS) company.

Approximately 9 hours and 12 minutes after the rocket took off, the Amazonas 5 satellite separated from the launch vehicle, and its initialization and solar panels were deployed. From there, maneuvers began to position the new satellite at the point in the geostationary orbit where the testing phase will be carried out to check its correct operation, which will last several weeks. Once the tests have been completed, the satellite will be located in its final orbital position of 61º West. The satellite will be operated by the company's Brazilian subsidiary, Hispamar.

The launch of Amazonas 5 took place on the same day that, 25 years ago, the company launched, from French Guiana, the first Spanish telecommunications satellite into space, Hispasat 30W-1 (Hispasat 1A), which was also launched into orbit on September 11.

Carlos Espídos, CEO of the Spanish operator, stated that "for HISPASAT, this new satellite represents the reaffirmation of the company's international vocation and, specifically, of our commitment to the Latin American market. We have been working in this region for many years and we have acquired great experience and extensive knowledge of the needs of customers in these countries. For this reason, we have designed a satellite completely dedicated to Latin America and adapted to the demands of this market, both for the audiovisual sector and to offer connectivity solutions in the segments residential, corporate and mobility.”
The Amazonas 5 is based on the Space Systems Loral (SSL) 1300 platform and has a power of 9.9 kilowatts and an estimated useful life of 15 years. The flexibility offered by Amazonas 5 and its great technological capacity allow it to offer a wide range of communication services.

Its 24 Ku-band transponders, with coverage over Central and South America, provide high-performance direct-to-home television (DTH) services. Amazonas 5 will allow television service providers that operate with Hispasat to transmit 500 new channels, which will consolidate 61º Oeste as the leading position in broadcasting these services in Latin America. This satellite will also be key to promoting 4K TV in the region.

It has also shipped 34 Ka-band beams to provide connectivity services to more than half a million people in several major countries in Central and South America. In addition, Amazonas 5 will offer operators in the region efficient and competitive Internet access via satellite, as well as transport or backhaul services to deploy their 3G and LTE cellular networks, and even 5G.

Este nuevo satélite sido diseñado, fabricado y probado en las instalaciones de SSL en Palo Alto, California (EEUU). En su fabricación ha participado una importante representación de la industria española: como Thales Alenia Space España, Airbus Defense & Space, Tryo, DAS Photonic, Iberespacio, GMV e Indra.

Innovation

Hispasat, faithful to its innovative vocation and the support it provides to the Spanish industry, has embarked on the Amazonas 5, in tests, a completely experimental load developed by DAS Photonics. It is an optical radio frequency distributor, a prototype of a system that can be important especially in satellites that carry Ka band since, being multibeam missions, they require a very high number of receivers.

With this new element, the complexity in the satellite input section would be greatly reduced, where hundreds of frequency conversions must be carried out that in the future could be done with this single component, which would distribute the signals to each receiver. This would also reduce the mass and volume of the satellite and improve the isolation between signal transmission and reception.