Hot Bird 13B
Eutelsat Hot Bird 13B (formerly: Hotbird 8) is a commercial geostationary communications satellite of Eutelsat.
Development
The satellite was placed in September 2003 as Hotbird 8 by Eutelsat from EADS Astrium in order. It was built on the basis of the " Euro Star 3000" - satellite bus and has a planned service life of 15 years. Hotbird 8 was the largest and most powerful satellite, Eutelsat had ordered up to this point. He has 64 transponders in Ku-band, which can transmit TV and radio programs 550 950. The solar cells for power supply have a wingspan of almost 40 meters.
EADS Astrium supplied under the names Hotbird 9 and Hotbird 10 two more identical satellites, which now bear the name Eutelsat Hot Bird 13C and Eutelsat 3C.
Operation
The satellite was launched on August 4th, 2006 21:48 UTC ( local time already after August 5 ) from the Russian Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. As the carrier was a rocket of the type Proton-M with a Briz- M upper stage. The initial weight was 4875 kg. After the launch train and some maneuvers, the satellite intensive tests went on positions 1.7 ° E and 4 ° East, then he was brought to its final position at 13 ° Ost013. On 3 October 2006, all programs were switched from located there Hot Bird 3 satellite at Hotbird 8, which began commercial operation. Hot Bird 3 was shifted to 10 ° East then.
Interference from Iran
The government in Iran apparently tried early 2010 several times to disrupt the transmission mode of the satellite. Were affected, among others, the Persian service of the BBC and Voice of America, as well as the Arabic program of Deutsche Welle. To this end, sent a jammer a strong signal on the frequency of the earth station Usingen from which Hot Bird 8 is replaced by its programs. The software satellite Eutelsat employee ID could make the city of Tehran in Iran as the source of the interference signal. The relevant programs are now sent via different satellites, which can not be obtained by the interference signal.
Renaming
As Eutelsat March 1, 2012 changed the designation system of satellite, Hotbird 8 received according to its orbital position of the name Eutelsat Hot Bird 13B.