Avanti has signed a contract with the European Space Agency to take ownership of the Artemis satellite on 1 January 2014.
Avanti stated that it will pay nothing upfront for the spacecraft and while it will assume modest operational costs, it expects…
Avanti has signed a contract with the European Space Agency to take ownership of the Artemis satellite on 1 January 2014.
Avanti stated that it will pay nothing upfront for the spacecraft and while it will assume modest operational costs, it expects these will be offset by new revenues from the project.
Artemis, or Advanced Relay and Technology Mission, was launched in 2001 has a minimum of a further three years of useful life. The experimental spacecraft contains Ka-band, S-band, L-band and optical payloads, all fully functional.
Avanti said that Artemis gives it the opportunity to offer a range of new Ka-band services such as very high speed data transfer at up to 450 Mbps to commercial and institutional customers. It also has plans to commercially develop the S and L-band payloads and navigation payload.
The satellite also has the ability to communicate with other satellites and has done so with ESA’s Autonomous Transfer Vehicle (ATV-5) and EGNOS missions. Avanti stated that Artemis will support ATV-5 on its re-supply mission to the International Space Station in 2014.
In addition, an existing customer of Artemis will continue to utilise the L-band payload to offer mobile satellite communications services.
Artemis is located at 21.5E with coverage of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As part of the contract, the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will also take over responsibility from its French peer for managing the Artemis satellite network filings with the ITU.
Commenting David Williams said: “We are very pleased to have won the competition to own this satellite. It takes us into some interesting new institutional markets with service from a new orbital position which may be impactful in the debt financing of a replacement satellite in future. “
Magali Vaissiere of ESA added: “We are pleased to give Artemis a second life through this agreement with Avanti after an already exceptional series of world first technological achievements and services.”
