What are the plans for AMC16 and E4?

[Paradox-SJ]

Has E* shown its had on what they plan on doing with these two birds?

 

[rocatman]

Dish has applied to the FCC to move AMC-16 to 118.7 W for use of Ku band. Dish has a lease agreement with TeleSat for the Anik F3 satellite at 118.7 W but that satellite won't be launched until the 3rd quarter of 2006 at the earliest. By the way, I believe a modified Superdish could be used to receive 110, 119, 118.7 (or 121) and 129. AMC-16 is suppose to go back to 85 W after the Anik F3 satellite is launched but Dish has licenses for Ka band at some other slots including 117 W and 113 W so Dish may want to request to have it moved to one of these locations. In addition, Dish has license to extended Ku band at 109 W and AMC-16 might be able to provide some extended Ku band similar to AMC-6 that SES Americom is trying to get FCC approval to use.

The E-4 satellite is at 77 W and Dish has applied to use it for the extreme southern part of the U.S. Remember E-4 is a very crippled satellite (cue the Sanford & Son theme music) and may only have 6 usable TPs.

 

[ITK]

How do they *move* satellites?

 

[mdonnelly]

How do they *move* satellites?

Most satellites have an onboard fuel supply and steering jets. It's not unusual to move a satellite from one azimuth to another. Obviously, the fuel supply is finite, and you can't do this very many times with the same satellite.

 

[Cyclone]

If they run out of fuel, then they have to use tractor beams from a nearby satellite. That uses up even more fuel.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Charlie could always ask the Asgard to move one, and give them a shopping channel as payment.

 

[goaliebob99]

They ask... Nasa to play bumpercars with the sat... and sometimes it ends up looking like an ugly NASCAR crash!

 

[rocatman]

Actually a European company with the backing of several others is developing spacecraft that would dock with a satellite and extend its life by providing a station-keeping propulsion module. I believe their goal is to extend the life of a typical communication satellite from 10 - 12 years to 15 - 20 years. Obviously you would only want to do this with a satellite that still has useful and working communication capabilities instead of ones with obsolete or non-functioning capabilities. In the last few years the reliability of communication satellites has increased substantially so this effort maybe worthwhile.

 

[ITK]

interesting. i did not know that.