Türksat 6A


Türksat 6A is a Turkish communications satellite under construction, which will be developed and produced indigenously to be operated by Türksat. This satellite will be Turkey's first fully domestically-produced communications satellite, and is expected to be completed by 2020 and launched in 2022.

History

According to an agreement signed on December 15, 2014, the satellite will be developed and manufactured indigenously by specialists under the leadership of TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute in cooperation with Turkish Aerospace Industries, ASELSAN and CTech Bilişim Teknolojileri A.Ş.. TAI will be in charge of design and production of the satellite structure and the subsystems such as spacecraft thermal control, chemical propulsion, harness and mechanical ground equipment needed to support the mission. TAI and TÜBİTAK Uzay will cooperate for the development of the software for satellite on-board data handling as well as for satellite command and control. They will perform the assembly, integration and test activities together at the TAI's Satellite Assembly Integration and Test Facility in Akıncı, Ankara. Türksat 6A will also have X-band satellite communication capability for use by the Turkish Armed Forces. ASELSAN, the Turkish military electronic systems producer, signed for this purpose a contract worth of CA$30 million with the Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates in April 2014.
The launch of the satellite is planned for 2022. It will be in a geosynchronous orbit positioned at 42° East with an expected on-orbit life time of at least 15 years. It will consist of 16 Ku band transponders, additionally 4 in reserve as well as two active and one in reserve X band transponders. The Ku band transponders will have a bandwidth of 7.3-18.1 GHz for uplink and 11.7-12.75 GHz downlink bandwidth. Each of the Ku band transponders will have a minimum power of 140 W and the X band transponders at least 150 W each.
While the X band transponders will cover the territory of Turkey only, the Ku band transponders of Türksat 6A will have three coverage zones:
It is estimated that the project will cost about US$250 million.