Hispasat’s Amazonas 5 Satellite Reaches its Orbital Position

Hispasat’s Amazonas 5 satellite is now in its final 61ºW orbital position and has begun to offer the services for which it was designed after having successfully passed the exhaustive testing carried out in space.

The Amazonas 5, built by Space Systems Loral (SSL) at its facilities in Palo Alto (California), offers coverage over the entire American continent and has an estimated useful life of 15 years. Hispasat’s Brazilian subsidiary, Hispamar, will be responsible for the operation of the satellite. Great technological capacity of the Amazonas 5 enables it to offer a wide range of communication services, both in the Ku band and the Ka band. Through the Ku band, Hispasat’s new satellite will provide high-performance direct-to-home (DTH) television services and will enable the television service providers that operate with Hispasat to transmit 500 new channels, which will consolidate 61ºW as a leading position for the broadcast of these services in Latin America. The satellite will also be a key for promoting 4K TV in the region.

The beams it incorporates in the Ka band will provide broadband connectivity and Internet access via quality and competitive satellite services to more than half a million people in several Central and South American countries. Furthermore, the Amazonas 5 will offer transport services or backhaul to operators in the region in order to deploy their 3G, 4G, and even 5G cellular networks. Launched on September 12 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard an ILS Proton Breeze M launch vehicle, the Amazonas 5 is the fleet’s eleventh satellite and its launch took place on the same day that the Company launched the first space communications satellite, the Hispasat 30W-1 (Hispasat 1A), from French Guiana 25 years ago.