Hotbird 7 - what's it going to carry ?

Pal

Cut this from elsewhere.

EUTELSAT’s HOT BIRDTM 7A SATELLITE ARRIVES AT KOUROU LAUNCH SITE IN FRENCH
GUIANA FROM ALCATEL ALENIA SPACE FACILITIES
Paris, 20 January 2006


The HOT BIRDTM 7A broadcasting satellite built by Alcatel Alenia Space for Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) arrived last night at the Kourou launch site in French Guiana. The satellite’s scheduled launch date is 21 February 2006 on-board an Ariane 5 ECA rocket.

what channels will we get ?

L1011

Its replacing Hotbird 4, IIRC, which has some sort of fault and is being flogged off to become a Nilesat at 7W

However, Hottie 7A should have a bigger transponder load than Hottie 4, and Hottie 1 is starting to get quite old, so it could be replacing both.

Don't expect much more new than normal gradual channel growth.

EDIT:

No, Hotbird 4 isn't faulty... however, its still getting replaced

1 is getting old, 2 has been leaking fuel since 2000 - so expect to see the two of them lose some txp load to 7A to reduce power usage.

byte

I think Hotbird 8 is going up to replace Hotbird 1.

Pal

Hope that one that carries Spice Platinum doesn't run out of fuel