Ordered from Thales Alenia Space in 2007, W7 opens the second phase of the expansion programme pursued between 2008 and 2011. W7 is the most powerful satellite ordered to date by Eutelsat, with a payload capable of operating up to 70 transponders connected to five high-power beams providing coverage of Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Copositioned with W4, it will replace SESAT 1 and double resources at 36° East. It will in particular enable Eutelsat to keep pace with the significant growth of digital broadcasting in Russia and Sub-Saharan Africa and will also provide new resources for telecoms and data services in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.
The launch of W7 will be followed in the second half of the 2009-2010 financial year by W3B. This satellite will be located at Eutelsat's 16° East position to assume the mission initially assigned to W2M, which was not commercially integrated into the fleet following a technical anomaly. Based on the Space 4000 platform of Thales Alenia Space, W3B will replace W2 and increase the number of operational transponders at 16° East from 27 to 56, principally for broadcasting in Central Europe and Indian Ocean islands.
As a consequence of the decision to locate W3B at 16° East, the Group placed an order with Thales Alenia Space for W3C in March 2009, for launch in third quarter 2011. Co-located at 7° East with W3A, the new satellite will take the number of operational transponders at this position from 44 to 70. These additional resources will be connected to three footprints addressing regions experiencing high demand for capacity: a high-power beam centred on Turkey and Central Europe to serve dynamic digital TV markets; a widebeam covering Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia for data services and broadband, and a beam centred over Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean islands for regional telecommunications services and interconnectivity with Europe.
The second order placed during the year, on 11 May 2009, was for ATLANTIC BIRD™ 7 which will be built by Astrium for launch in the last quarter of 2011. Planned to replace ATLANTIC BIRD™ 4A at 7° West, it will increase from 26 to almost 50 the number of Eutelsat transponders at this key neighbourhood, which is jointly operated with the Egyptian operator Nilesat. ATLANTIC BIRD™ 7 will be equipped with two footprints: one centred over the Middle East, the Gulf States and North Africa; and a second over Northwest Africa including all the Maghreb and down to the Gulf of Guinea.
The W2A satellite was launched on 3 April 2009 by an ILS Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and went into service on 19 May at 10° East to replace W1. Equipped with 46 Ku-band and 10 C-band transponders, it has almost tripled resources of this major position serving professional video, data and broadband markets in Europe and Africa. As well as its original mission in Ku- and C-bands, W2A took the first European S-band payload into orbit. Owned by Solaris Mobile, a joint company created by Eutelsat and SES Astra, this payload dedicated to operating data and television services to mobile terminals was not put into service during the year, due to an anomaly detected during in-orbit tests. In June 2009, Solaris Mobile filed an insurance claim for compensation for non-conformity with contract conditions.
In-orbit operations in the financial year closed with the redeployment, in June 2009, of W1 (renamed EUROBIRD™ 4A) to the 4° East position which is in high demand for government services. The satellite replaced EUROBIRD™ 4, which will be redeployed in the next six months to 75° East within the framework of a cooperation agreement with the operator ABS.