Apr 12 2005
From The Space Library
The Apstar 6 satellite launched aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan Province. The 4.8-tonne (4,800-kilogram or 5.3-ton) satellite carried 38 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders. Replacing the ageing Apstar 1A, the craft would provide digital, multimedia transmissions to Australia, India, and countries in eastern Asia. The satellite was the first Western-built, commercial telecommunications spacecraft to carry almost no U. S.-made components, as well as the first commercial Chinese satellite with an antijamming payload. Hong Kong-based APT Satellite Company had requested that Alcatel Space include the antijamming technology in response to the threat of satellite-signal piracy, which had occurred several times over the previous two years. The new Alcatel Spacebus 4000 C1 satellite platform selected for Apstar 6 included no U.S. parts subject to the export controls of the U.S. Department of State. Because the U.S. government had refused to grant export licenses for U.S. satellite parts destined for launch in China, Alcatel Space had substituted European, Russian, and other non-U.S. components. (Spacewarn Bulletin, no. 618, 1 May 2005, http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx618.html (accessed 8 September 2009); Peter B. de Selding, “Apstar 6 Launched from China,” Space News, 13 April 2005.)
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