Ariane 5 ECA: Eutelsat Konnect & GSAT-30

Eutelsat Konnect is an all-electric, Ka-band geostationary communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space for Eutelsat. It will provide broadband services to users in Africa and Europe. The baseline mission of the satellite is to provide 75 Gbps of capacity across a network of 65 spotbeams that together provide quasi-complete coverage of Sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite will address direct-to-user consumer and enterprise broadband services using dishes from approximately 75 cm. It will also be used for community networks connected to Wi-Fi hotspots, mobile phone backhauling and rural connectivity. Eutelsat Konnect is the first to use Thales Alenia Space’s all-electric Spacebus NEO platform, developed under the Neosat Partnership Project conducted by the European and French space agencies (ESA and CNES). More robust, more modular, more powerful, more innovative, more flexible, this platform is perfectly adapted to operators' expectations in the evolving telecommunication market, and particlularly well positioned for very demanding VHTS missions. Eutelsat Konnect will allow the in-orbit validation of the complete end-to-end system of the new Spacebus Neo product line, including the fully-electric orbit-raising phase GSAT-30 is a telecommunications satellite designed and manufactured by ISRO. To be positioned at a longitude of 83° East, it will provide high-quality television, telecommunications and broadcasting services over Indian mainland and Islands. GSAT-30 is configured on ISRO’s enhanced I-3K platform to provide communications services from geostationary orbit in C-and Ku-band for a lifetime greater than 15 years. By operating GSAT-30, ISRO will once again foster the use of space to help bridge the digital divide in the Indian subcontinent as part of its ambitious space program. These objectives are to develop India by focusing on all types of space applications, including navigation, Earth observation, telecommunications and broadcasts of educational programs, while pursuing science research and planetary exploration.