Measat’s latest satellite, their 3d ‘triple payload’ with Ku-, Ka-, C-band and even L-band on board, is due to launch on June 22nd — also on board the Arianespace rocket will be India’s GSAT-24.
The Arianespace Ariane 5 launch, from Kourou in French Guiana, will be the first of the year. Arianespace’s Mission VA257 will help improve the broadband coverage in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The planned launch window is from 21:03 to 22:43 UTC.
The satellites will be launched for two major actors and long-standing Arianespace customers: Malaysia’s Measat, and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS).
Measat-3d, to be co-located with Measat-3a and Measat-3b at the 91.5°E orbital slot, is a multi-mission telecommunications satellite built by Airbus Defence and Space. This new satellite will significantly enhance broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbps per user in areas with limited or no terrestrial network throughout Malaysia while continuing to provide redundancy and additional capacity for video distribution in HD, 4K, and ultimately 8K in the Asia-Pacific region.
GSAT-24, a Ku-band 4-ton class communications satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) that will provide high-quality television, telecomms and broadcasting services over India. OneWeb close to India approvals
OneWeb Close To India Approvals
OneWeb looks set to shortly receive the crucial landing rights and market access approvals from the Indian government to deploy their global satellite systems for launching broadband from space services in this year later this year.
OneWeb has applied to the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) – a central regulatory body mandated to attract private capital into the space sector – for these statutory clearances, according to a report in India’s Economic Times.
“We have already applied to IN-SPACe for the requisite approvals (read: landing rights and market access) and are confident these will come through soon,” a senior OneWeb executive told the newspaper.
OneWeb – co-owned by India’s Bharti Group and the UK government – recently received the key GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) license from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). OneWeb’s other key shareholders are Eutelsat Communications, Hanwha Systems, SoftBank and Hughes Networks.
After the GMPCS approval, the next stage is winning permissions for satellite landing rights and market access which are critical for OneWeb to establish in-country Earth stations (read: satellite gateways) and also deploy its LEO global satellite bandwidth capacity in India. OneWeb has sought DoT approval for setting up the gateways.
A few days ago, OneWeb contracted with India’s New Space India to launch some of its remaining satellites.
Articles authored by Chris Forrester, Senior Columnist