Astra 5°E


Astra 5°E is the name for the Astra communications satellites co-located at the 5° east position in the Clarke Belt which are owned and operated by SES based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg. 5° east is one of the major TV satellite positions serving Europe.
The Astra satellites at 5° east provide for services downlinking to the Nordic countries, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa in the 11.70 GHz-12.75 GHz range of the Ku band, and at present the Astra 4A and the SES-5 are regularly operational at this position.
Satellites at 5°E were originally operated by Swedish Space Corporation, and then Nordic Satellite AB before SES took full control of the position and the satellites in 2010, renaming the Sirius 4 satellite to Astra 4A and later adding its own Astra 1E to the group followed by the SES-5.

Satellite craft in use

Current

Astra 5°E is SES' position for direct-to-home broadcasting to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, as well as Eastern European and Baltic countries including Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Over 460 TV, radio and interactive channels.

Capacity and reach

the Astra satellites at 5° east broadcast on 121 transponders to 51.5 million households.

History

The Astra 5°E orbital position was originally the Direct broadcast satellite orbital position allocated to Sweden with Swedish Satellite Corporation's Tele-X the first TV satellite at this position. In 1994, Tele-X was joined by Sirius 1, bought by NSAB from BSkyB in 1993 after Sky Television plc's merger with British Satellite Broadcasting, and moved to 5°E from its original orbital position at 30°West as Marcopolo 1.
Sirius 1 was later joined at 5° east by Sirius 2 and then Sirius 3, with the most recent addition, Sirius 4, launched in November 2007.
Tele-X was retired to a graveyard orbit in 1998. Sirius 1 was moved to 13° west and renamed Sirius W in 2000 and retired in 2003. In 2008 Sirius 2 was moved to 31.5°E and renamed Astra 5A but in January 2009, the spacecraft suffered a failure and was withdrawn from service some four years ahead of its expected end of life. Sirius 3 is in inclined orbit at 51.2° east.
In 2000, SES bought the 50% shareholding in NSAB owned by Teracom and Tele Danmark and in 2003 increased that holding to 75%, renaming the company SES Sirius AB. In 2008 Astra acquired further shares to take its shareholding in SES Sirius to 90% and in March 2010 took full control of the company. In June 2010, the affiliate company was renamed SES Astra and the Sirius 4 satellite renamed Astra 4A. SES Astra is now a non-autonomous part of SES.
Astra 4A was originally the designation given in 2007 to just part of the Sirius 4 satellite owned and operated by SES Sirius. From June 2010, the Astra 4A designation has applied to the entire satellite.
In September 2010, Astra 1E was moved to 5° east to provide further backup for Astra 4A until the launch of SES-5. Astra 1E was originally launched to the primary Astra position of 19.2°E but, prior to its move to 5°E, since October 2007 it had been used at 23.5°E to provide additional capacity before the launch of Astra 3B to that position in May 2010.
On July 9, 2012 SES-5 was successfully launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and on September 17, 2012 it started commercial operations at 5°E. SES-5 was originally named Sirius 5, but renamed to Astra 4B in 2010 and then to SES-5 in 2011.
In July 2015 Astra 2D arrived, inactive, at the Astra 5°E position, moved from Astra 28.2°E where it had served all its active life. In October 2015, Astra 2D left this position but returned in July 2018, only to leave Astra 5°E again in January 2020.