ASTRA 2A READY FOR COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS AT 28.2° EAST ASTRA 1D to be relocated to 19.2° East

Société Européenne des Satellites (SES) is pleased to announce that its ASTRA 2A satellite has today entered commercial service at SES' second orbital location of 28.2° East.

ASTRA 2A was launched onboard a Proton launch vehicle from the Cosmodrome of Baikonur (Kazakhstan) on August 30^th, 1998. Since then, four activations of ASTRA 2A's apogee motor propelled ASTRA 2A into geostationary orbit. On September 7th, 1989, Hughes and SES engineers proceeded with the deployment of the spacecraft's reflectors and sub-reflectors, followed by the deployment of the solar arrays on September 9th, 1998. After thorough in-orbit testing of the payload starting September 11^th, 1998, the date when spacecraft control was handed over to SES' Satellite Control Facility in Betzdorf (Luxemburg), the transfer of the ongoing digital test transmissions from ASTRA 1D to ASTRA 2A was completed on September 26th, 1998. The spacecraft officially enters commercial service today.

Following the successful launch and in-orbit deployment of ASTRA 2A, ASTRA 1D, which had been temporarily re-located to 28.2° East in April 1998, will now return to 19.2° East. The in-orbit maneuver is scheduled to take up to 30 days in order to minimize fuel consumption, with ASTRA 1D reintegrating the co-positioned ASTRA constellation at 19.2° East no later then October 30^th, 1998.

In a related development, the Sirius 3 spacecraft is poised for launch onboard an Ariane 44 L launch vehicle from the European Space Center in Kourou (French Guyana) on October 5^th, 1998. Sirius 3, owned by the Nordic Satellite Company NSAB, has been leased by SES for operations at the orbital location of 28.2° East for a period of up to 12 month. Co-located with ASTRA 2A, Sirius 3 will extend SES' unique intersatellite protection scheme to SES' second orbital position, while making available additional transponder capacity.

ASTRA 2B, SES' second dedicated satellite for 28.2° East, in the meantime is well under construction with Matra Marconi Space and due for launch onboard an Ariane launch vehicle during the second quarter 1999. Co-located at 28.2° East, ASTRA 2A and 2B will provide 56 transponders for the digital distribution of TV, radio and multimedia services.