Horizons 2 increases Intelsat’s North American and Caribbean coverage and the CONUS/Caribbean beam offers “hot spot” service to major North American cities via the powerful Ku-band (see Figure 1), while the second footprint is more suited for Maritime services due to its boomerang-shaped beam blanketing the U.S. east coast and the Caribbean islands (see Figure 2).
JSAT
JSAT offers their satcom services in the Asia-Pacific region and they operate 9 satellites. These are positioned in 8 orbital slots and the company is concentrating on providing satellite plus video image solutions as well as broadcasting and telecommunications convergence operations. And JSAT has a solid redundancy philosophy—the company deploys one satellite simply as a backup to the other satellites.
JSAT is part of the JSAT Group, whose company list includes JSAT international, Inc. (Bethesda, Maryland); Satellite Network, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan); Horizons Satellite Holdings (joint venture between JSAT International and Intelsat Corporation); and Horizons-1 Satellite LLC and Horizons-2 Satellite LLC.
Intelsat
The first commercial global satellite communications system was established by Intelsat in 1965. The company launched the world’s first comsat on April 6, 1965, that being Early Bird, otherwise known as Intelsat I, into synchronous orbit. TV and voice services via this vehicle were initiated in June of 1965. When Intelsat III launched in July of 1969, another world’s first for the company—the first global satcom! Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon were broadcast live, via Intelsat, that same month, with a record 500 million TV viewers watching this historic moment. In July of 2006, Intelsat merged with PanAmSat Holding Corporation and became the largest provider of fixed satellite services (FSS) in the world.
Horizons 2 Specifics
Transponders
16 x 36 MHz
4 x 72 MHz
Polarization
Linear--Horizontal or Vertical
Downlink Frequency
11.70 to 12.20 GHz
Typical Edge of Coverage e.i.r.p.
| North America | >47.4 dBW for 85 W xpdr |
| >50.0 dBW for 150 W xpdr |
Uplink Frequency
14.00 to 14.50 GHz
Typical Edge of Coverage G/T
| North American | >2.0 dB/K |
| East Coast North American | >0.9 dB/K |
SFD (0.0 dB/K and 0 dB attn.)
| -97 dBW/m2 |
Fixed Attenuators
| Fix Gain Mode | 0 to 25 dB in 1 dB steps |
| ALC Mode | 0 to 15 dB in 1 dB steps |