APStar 2 (Star-63F)

Launch data: Designation  95F02 Launch date 25 Jan 1995 at 19:26 UT Launch site Xichang, LC-2 Launch vehicle CZ-2E Mission Communications Geostationary orbit should have been in 77°E slot

Specifications:

End of life:

Description:

• The APStar 2 satellite was designed to serve two-thirds of the world's population - from China, Japan, and Vietnam on the east; to Russia, Eastern Europe, and India on the west; and to Australia on the south. APT Satellite Company, Ltd., of Hong Kong, ordered the high-power Hughes HS 601 spacecraft model in November 1993, as well as satellite control facility equipment and operator training.
• APStar 2 was to complement the smaller Hughes-built APStar 2 and be used primarily for television broadcasting. APStar 2 was launched Jan. 26, 1995, on a Long March 2E rocket from Xichang, China, but it was destroyed in an explosion shortly after liftoff.
• APStar 2 was to have provided video services for program distribution and syndication; data services for business applications; and services for video, radio, data, and telephone transmission. The C-band payload, using 52-watt traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs), had 26 active and six spare transponders. The Ku-band payload had six active channels (with two spares) powered by 50-watt TWTAs and two high-power channels (with one spare) powered by 120-watt TWTAs.
• APStar 2 was designed to generate 4300 Watts with its two solar wings, each carrying four panels of K-4 3/4 solar cells. The APStar 2 configuration included two dual-surface, hexagonal reflectors, each with a diameter of 2.1 meters, located on the east and west sides. A 30-cell nickel-hydrogen battery was included to power the spacecraft during eclipse. APStar 2 used Hughes' advanced shaped-reflector technology, which concentrates the satellite's beam over targeted land areas while avoiding uninhabited oceans. Hughes' patented, highly efficient design eliminates the need for multiple feedhorn configurations.
• For launch, the solar arrays and antennas were folded alongside the spacecraft, forming a compact arrangement of 2.7 meters by 4 meters by 3.6 meters. With the solar wings unfolded and the antennas deployed, APStar 2 measured 26 meters from end-to-end and 7 meters across. The bipropellant propulsion system included an integral 490-Newton (110 lbf) Marquardt liquid apogee motor plus thirteen 22-Newton (5 lbf) thrusters for stationkeeping.

C-band

Ku-band