SES 5 makes succesful launch

SES’s SES-5 satellite successfully launched today at 00:38 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It was the second attempt at launching the satellite following problems on the initial launch date of June 19.

SES-5’s 36 active Ku-band transponders and up to 24 active C-band transponders will be located at 5° East. It will feature two Ku-band beams, one serving customers in the Nordic and Baltic countries and the other one serving sub-Saharan Africa as well as two C-band beams, one with global coverage and one with hemispheric coverage over Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The satellite provides Ka-band uplink capability, allowing for operations between Europe and Africa.

Romain Bausch, president and CEO of SES, said: “SES-5 marks the second successful ILS-Proton launch in 2012 for SES and the third SES satellite delivered by Space Systems/Loral in the last ten months. SES-5 furthermore hosts the EGNOS payload for the European Commission. The powerful new satellite enters the global SES fleet as Number 51. We would like to thank the launch teams of Space Systems/Loral, ILS, Khrunichev and SES for their dedicated work that ultimately ensured total mission success. We would also like to thank the European Commission for entrusting SES with the EGNOS hosted payload. After thorough in-orbit testing, SES and its customers can now look forward to SES-5 providing new, state-of-the-art satellite capacity across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.”