July 17, 2014 - Press releaseSES-12 will be the most powerful and flexible of the telecommunications satellites ordered by SES. This highly innovative satellite will use electric propulsion for initial orbit raising and all on-orbit manoeuvres. Airbus Defence and Space, the world’s second largest space company, has just been awarded a contract by SES, one of the world’s leading satellite operators, to design and build a highly innovative high-performance telecommunications satellite. SES-12 is the most powerful satellite ever to have been ordered by SES. It will be based on the highly reliable Eurostar E3000 platform from Airbus Defence and Space as an all new EOR (Electric Orbit Raising) version. This version uses only electric propulsion for initial orbit raising, with the reduction in mass enabling the satellite to be equipped with an exceptionally large payload. The satellite also incorporates other state-of-the-art solutions, in particular multi-beam antennas linked to a digital signal processor that enables a multitude of basic spectral channels to be allocated to various beams in a completely flexible manner. “I salute SES’s ambitions when it comes to innovation and responsiveness in a rapidly changing market, and we are pleased to be able to provide them with our very best technology for both the payload and the platform,” said François Auque, Head of Space Systems. “We have been using electric propulsion for station-keeping for 10 years now and have equipped 10 Eurostar E3000 satellites with this technology, which we are now also offering for initial orbit raising. The resulting weight saving will enable us to combine two high-capacity missions equivalent to two conventional satellites in one satellite, SES-12.” “SES-12 is the 11th Eurostar satellite to have been ordered by SES from Airbus Defence and Space,” added Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO of SES. “Eight of these satellites are in operational service, one is ready to be launched, and a 10th, ordered this year, is currently under construction.” The satellite will have a dual mission. It will replace the NSS-6 satellite in orbit, providing television broadcasting and telecom infrastructure services from one end of Asia to the other, with beams adapted to six areas of coverage. It will also have a flexible multi-beam processed payload for providing broadband services covering a large expanse from Africa to Russia, Japan and Australia. SES-12 will operate in the Ku and Ka bands with a total of 76 active transponders, and will be equipped with eight antennas. It will have a launch weight of 5,300 kg and an electric power of 19 kW. The satellite will be launched in 2017, and its electric propulsion system will enable it to reach its geostationary orbit in three to six months, depending on the type of launcher used. Its nominal operational position will be 95° E and it has been designed to remain in service in orbit for more than 15 years.
Seeking to restore capacity for customers impacted by a satellite malfunction earlier this year, fleet operator SES is swapping launches between SpaceX and Arianespace, the company announced today.Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, previously contracted to launch SES-14, will instead launch SES-12. Arianespace of Evry, France, will launch SES-14 on an Ariane 5 rocket during the first quarter of 2018, saving “a couple of weeks” on bringing the satellite into service, according to SES spokesperson Markus Payer.Both satellites were expected to launch this year when SES signed the launch agreements in 2015. Payer said the Ariane 5 launch is in the earlier half the first quarter of 2018, while the Falcon 9 launch is in the latter half....Payer said SES did pay a “marginal” fee for swapping the satellites SpaceX and Arianespace will carry.
Both SES-12 and SES-14 are using electric propulsion for orbit-raising and will enter into service some four to six months after launch.SES-12 ... will be co-located with SES-8
“It’s a combination of wide-beam and HTS [high-throughput] capacity. It takes us a year to design the spacecraft and four years to build it and it has an 18-year lifetime — an incredibly long cycle,” Halliwell said of SES-12. Nobody has any idea of where we are going to be in 25 years.“And look at the amount of kit you have to put together to build a satellite of this size — thousands of switches, hundreds of TWTAs, over 4,500 coax cables on this satellite. It’s around 4,500 kilograms. It’s a monster, really big.”Halliwell said SES views SES-12 as a bridge between its analog past and digital future. About 25% of the satellite’s capacity is routed through the digital transparent processor — not enough for future satellites.“We want full digital processing from the low-noise amplifier input on the spacecraft right through to the digital transmit array,” Halliwell said. “We want everything digitized, everything programmable on orbit.”
With a Block 5 core, maybe easily so. Don't know if there will be one available yet, though.
Quote from: AncientU on 12/07/2017 11:57 amWith a Block 5 core, maybe easily so. Don't know if there will be one available yet, though.SES-10 was 5300 kg as well and the SES-10 first stage did land on OCISLY.
Today we were happy to welcome our customer @SES_Satellites for a visit of its latest all-electric⚡️ #satellite 🛰 SES-12 in our cleanrooms.
[Feb. 15] Airbus Defence and Space and SES have jointly presented their new all-electric satellite, SES-12, before a group of selected media in Toulouse, France.Weighing in at 5,400 kg, and with an electric power of 19 kW, SES-12 is the largest and most powerful all-electric satellite ever produced.Currently undergoing final tests at Airbus’s clean rooms, the satellite is expected to leave Toulouse shortly before being transported to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for a March/April launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
19kW?? ISS is only about 100kW and the Dawn probe is 10kW!5 of these solar arrays can replace the ISS truss? That's crazy.
With five solar array panels on each wing for a total wingspan of 45m
ISS solar power is 248 kW with 32800 * 8 cells [1] each being 8 cm * 8 cm [2] for a total area of around 1680 m2. Therefore the array would be 14.7% efficient if the irradiance were 1 kW/m2.[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160014034.pdf[2] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987pvsp.conf..489L
Quote from: sewebster on 02/24/2018 04:06 amISS solar power is 248 kW with 32800 * 8 cells [1] each being 8 cm * 8 cm [2] for a total area of around 1680 m2. Therefore the array would be 14.7% efficient if the irradiance were 1 kW/m2.[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160014034.pdf[2] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987pvsp.conf..489LSurely the irradiance at ISS is higher than 1kW/m2?, since that is typical for ground level after passing through Earth's [cloudless] atmosphere. And ISS cell are GAs so should be more efficient that with silica based cells.
Surely the irradiance at ISS is higher than 1kW/m2?, since that is typical for ground level after passing through Earth's [cloudless] atmosphere. And ISS cell are GAs so should be more efficient that with silica based cells.