Inmarsat-4A F4

Alphasat I- XL is a communication satellite that has been commissioned by Inmarsat and ESA by a European consortium of companies led by Thales Alenia Space ( TAS dec ) and Astrium was built. He should go at the orbital position 25 ° Ost025 above the equator in service.

Payload

Alphasat I- XL for Inmarsat to mobile telecommunications in the L band, including with mobile phones, enable. He submits a deployable antenna with a diameter of 11 meters. However, before it can be aligned with the earth, the satellite has to change its orientation in the geostationary orbit at 90 ° compared to the normal orientation.

In addition, has Alphasat I- XL four experiments on board the ESA:

History of the flight

Alphasat I- XL was launched by an Ariane 5 ECA on 25 July 2013 at 19:54 UTC and brought to a geostationary transfer orbit. On August 6, 2013 Alphasat reached its preliminary position on the GEO web after the deployment of the antennas was successful. Meanwhile, all the experimental payloads have been activated by Alphasat.

Alphabus

The satellite is based on the Alphabus, which was developed under the leadership of Astrium and TAS on behalf of ESA. As the first type of this series Alphasat I- XL exploits the possibilities of Alpha bus not. He will consume only 12 kW of electricity and about 6.6 t have takeoff weight. The empty weight is 3.5 tonnes and the span of the solar arrays 40 m.