On Nov. 21, SES' Astra operator announced that their 2F satellite entering its in-orbit testing successfully started to operate service in commercial.

 

Located at the 28.2/28.5 degrees East orbit slot , 2F satellite was the 52 nd SES satellite sent abroad an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocekt in September.

 

Astra 2F was built by Astrium using a Eurostar E3000 platform. Its multi-mission was to carry Ku-band and Ka-band payloads for delivering Direct-to-Home (DTH) with high-performance and next generation Extended band services in Europe and Africa. Among of them, 48 Ku-band transponders cover Europe and 12 Ku-band of them served for Sub-Saharan Africa, and the last 3 Ka-band will make the extended band service support download speed up to 20 Mbps.

 

Also Astra 2F is a part of replacing fleet and expanding program in its orbit nearby including Astra 2E, 2F and 2G. In a word, the purpose of this system is to replace and improve the capacity of United Kingdom and Ireland as well as other countries in and outside of Europe. Astra 2E ans 2G are in the construction and plan to send in 2013 and 2014 separately.