Arabsat 2B suffers in orbit problem September 2007
ARABSAT, the Arab Satellite Communications
Organization, announced that on Wednesday September 26th, at 13:30 GMT, its
Arabsat-2B satellite has experienced a minor glitch that affected the pointing of the
satellite. Within approximately 2 hours, the problem was corrected and the satellite
recovered its nominal pointing.
Precautionary measurements made after its
pointing recovery have demonstrated that the satellite is in perfect health, with all of
its sub-systems running nominally. None of these systems suffered any physical or
operational damage. The satellite is currently running with its primary equipment and no
reconfiguration to redundant units was needed.
However, as a result of the recovery measures,
the satellite experienced a drift from its nominal orbital location. The communications
traffic of Arabsat-2B suffered various degrees of degradation and some services on the
satellite have been affected.
Extensive efforts from Arabsat engineers are
currently under way to bring the satellite back to its accurate 30.5°E orbital position
and recover its full communications capability within hours. Customers equipped with
auto-tracking features have already restored their services while others have been moved
temporarily to other Arabsat satellites.
According to preliminary analysis gathered since
the incident occurred, the interruption of services on Arabsat-2B has no impact on the
performance of the satellite, whose 34 transponders in C- and Ku-band are all in perfect
working order. A full investigation is being conducted by Arabsat in collaboration with
the satellite manufacturer, in order to determine the specific reason for the anomaly.
Arabsat reaffirms its permanent commitment to
always provide its customers with the highest possible level of services.
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