Arabsat-5A, a multi-mission satellite, will provide additional capacity at the Arabsat 30.5 degrees East position for a large range of satellite communications services such as television backhauling and broadcasting, telephony, business communications, Internet trunking and the provision of VSAT and other interactive services, over sub-Saharan Africa, the North-Africa and Middle East (MENA) region, and beyond.
Arabsat 5A was built by an industrial team of Astrium and Thales Alenia Space acting as co-prime contractors. Astrium, the team leader, supplied the Eurostar E3000 platform and assembled and tested the spacecraft.
Thales Alenia Space supplied the communications payload featuring 26 active transponders in C-band and 24 in Ku-band. The Launch and Early Orbit Phase will be conducted from the Astrium spacecraft control centre in Toulouse.
Arabsat-5A will have a launch mass of 4,800kg and a spacecraft power of 11kW at the end of its 15-year designed lifetime. Arabsat 5A is the 4th Eurostar built for the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) based in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the 1st Eurostar E3000 in a series of four Arabsat 5th generation satellite ordered to date. A sister spacecraft, Arabsat 5B also known as Badr 5, is undergoing final testing in Toulouse.
Arabsat 5A is planned for launch by an Ariane 5 which will also carry another Astrium-built satellite, COMS, for the South Korean space agency KARI. Launch of Arabsat 5A and COMS is scheduled for the end of April.
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