Mission type Communication COSPAR ID 1990-091A Spacecraft SBS 6 Launch date 12 October 1990 Inclination 7.3° Rocket Ariane 4 | Operator Intelsat SATCAT no. 20872 Bus HS-393 Inclination 7.3° Period 1 day Manufacturer Hughes Aircraft Company | |
Similar Galaxy 10R, Intelsat 603, Intelsat III F‑3, Galaxy 27, Intelsat 5 | ||
SBS 6 was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes (now Boeing) on the HS-393 platform. It was originally ordered by Satellite Business Systems, which later sold it to Hughes Communications and was last used by Intelsat. It had a Ku band payload and operated on the 95°W longitude.
Contents
Satellite description
The spacecraft was designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-393 satellite bus. It had a launch mass of 2,478 kg (5,463 lb), a mass of 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) after reaching geostationary orbit and an 8-year design life. When stowed for launch, its dimensions were 3.4 m (11 ft) long and 3.7 m (12 ft) in diameter.
With its solar panels fully extended it spanned 10 m (33 ft). Its power system generated approximately 2,350 Watts of power thanks to two cylindrical solar panels. It also had a two 38Ah NiH2 batteries. These panels used K7 and K4-3/4 solar cells and were more than twice the number than on the HS-376.
Its propulsion system was composed of two R-4D LAE with a thrust of 490 N (110 lbf). It also used two axial and four radial 22 N (4.9 lbf) bipropellant thrusters for station keeping and attitude control. It included enough propellant for orbit circularization and 8 years of operation.
Its payload was composed of a 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) multi horn antenna by thirty 45 MHz Ku band transponders, of which 19 were active and 11 spares. It had a total active bandwidth of 855 MHz. The Ku band transponders had a TWTA output power of 41 Watts. It also had an omnidirectional command and telemetry antenna.
History
In 1985 Satellite Business Systems decided to order a more powerful satellite than the HS-376 based previous satellites. Thus, it ordered the HS-393 based SBS 6 from Hughes, becoming the first customer of the platform.
On October 12, 1990, SDS 6 was finally launched by an Ariane 44L from Kourou ELA-2 at 22:58 UTC.
In April 2009, SDS 6 finally decommissioned and put on a graveyard orbit.