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Qatar’s Es’hailsat is expected to have its Es’hail-2 communications satellite launched on Thursday, 15 November 2018, on board a SpaceX Falcon-9 satellite launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Es’hail-2 will be launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A between 3:46-5:29 p.m Eastern Standard Time. It will be the 13th launch for SpaceX from Florida in 2018, and the 18th launch overall for the company in 2018.
Es’hail-2 is a high-performance satellite with sophisticated anti-jamming capabilities that will be positioned at the 26 degrees hotspot position in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) for satellite television broadcasting, adding to Es’hailsat’s ability to provide high quality, premium Direct-to-Home (DTH) television content across the Middle East and North Africa. According to Es’hailsat, discussions are underway to provide satellite television content in other regions currently not served by the company.
Es’hail-2 features Ku-band and Ka-band transponders to provide TV distribution and government services to strategic stakeholders and commercial customers who value broadcasting and communications independence, interference resilience, quality of service, and wide geographical coverage.
Es’hail-2 will also provide the first Amateur Radio geostationary communication capability linking Brazil and India. It will carry two AMSAT P4A (Phase 4A) Amateur Radio transponders. The payload will consist of a 250 kHz linear transponder intended for conventional analogue operations in addition to another transponder which will have an 8 MHz bandwidth. The latter transponder is intended for experimental digital modulation schemes and DVB amateur television. The uplinks will be in the 2.400-2.450 GHz and the downlinks in the 10.450-10.500 GHz amateur satellite service allocations. Both transponders will have broad beam antennas to provide full coverage over about third of the earth’s surface. The Qatar Amateur Radio Society and Qatar Satellite Company are cooperating on the amateur radio project. AMSAT-DL is providing technical support to the project.
In September 2014, a contract with Japanese satellite manufacturer Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) was signed to build the satellite based on the DS-2000 bus. In December 2014, a launch contract was signed with SpaceX to launch the satellite on a Falcon-9 v.1.2 (Block 5) space launch vehicle in late 2016, but this was delayed to the 3rd quarter of 2017, and then to November 2018.
