Astra 1E

Mission type	Communications
Operator	Société Européenne des Satellites / SES S.A.
COSPAR ID	1995-055A
SATCAT no.	23686
Website	https://www.ses.com/
Mission duration	15 years (planned) 19 years, 8 months (achieved)
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Boeing 601
Bus	HS-601
Manufacturer	Hughes Space and Communications
Launch mass	3,014 kg (6,645 lb)
Power	4.7 kW
Start of mission
Launch date	19 October 1995, 00:38:00 UTC
Rocket	Ariane 42L H10-3 (V79)
Launch site	Centre Spatial Guyanais, ELA-2
Contractor	Arianespace
Entered service	December 1995
End of mission
Disposal	Graveyard orbit
Deactivated	June 2015
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric orbit[1]
Regime	Geostationary orbit
Longitude	19.2° East (1995-2007) 23.5° East (2007-2010) 5.2° East (2010-2012) 108.2° East (2012-2014) 31.5° East (2014-2015) 23° East (2015)
Transponders
Band	18 Ku-band
Bandwidth	FSS: 26 Mhz BSS: 33 MHz
Coverage area	Europe
Astra constellation ← Astra 1D Astra 1F →

Astra 1E is one of the Astra communications satellites in geostationary orbit owned and operated by SES. It was launched in October 1995 to the Astra 19.2°E orbital slot initially to provide digital television and radio for direct-to-home (DTH) across Europe.

Astra 1E was the first Astra satellite to be dedicated to digital television broadcasting and it carried many of the first digital television channels from networks broadcasting to France, Germany, and other European countries in the 1990s.^{[citation needed]}

The satellite originally provided two broadcast beams, of horizontal and vertical polarisation, for Fixed Service Satellite (FSS) (10.70-10.95 GHz) and for Broadcast Satellite Service (BSS) (11.70-12.10 GHz) frequency bands. The FSS beams provide footprints that cover essentially the same area of Europe – northern, central and eastern Europe, including Spain and northern Italy – while the BSS horizontal beam excludes Spain and extends further east, and the BSS vertical beam includes Spain and more of southern Italy but does not extend so far east.^[2] Within the footprints, television signals are usually received with a 60–80 cm dish.

History

In October 2007, following the successful deployment of Astra 1L at 19.2° East, Astra 1E was moved to Astra's new DTH orbital position, 23.5° East^[3] where it provided capacity for the transmission of new services including the ASTRA2Connect two-way satellite broadband Internet service which provides high speed internet access and Voice over IP (VoIP) without landline connection at up to 2 Mbit/s download speeds and 128 kbit/s upload ^[4] using four Ku-band transponders for both forward and return paths from the user's remote terminal.^[5]

In May 2010, Astra 3B was launched to the 23.5° East position, coming into service in June 2010, at which time the services using Astra 1E were transferred to the new craft. In August 2010, Astra 1E left the 23.5° East position moving westwards, to the Astra 5°E position to provide backup for Astra 4A pending the launch of Astra 4B to that position in 2011. At 5° East, Astra 1E carried very little television traffic.^[6] Following the launch of Astra 4B (renamed to SES-5) in February 2012,^[7] Astra 1E was moved to 108.2° East, in inclined orbit and with no traffic, and then to 31.5° East in Summer 2013. It returned to 23° East in February 2015.^[8]

in June 2015, the satellite was retired and was moved into a graveyard orbit above the geostationary belt, moving 5.4° West per day.^[9][10]