EUTELSAT

History:

• The European Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Eutelsat) was originally set up in 1977 as an intergovernmental organisation (IGO) to develop and operate a satellite-based telecommunications infrastructure for Europe.
• In 1979 the European Space Agency decided to build five ECS satellites whose management were given to the European organization Eutelsat. The Satellites were aimed to respond to the post and telecommunications needs and to transmit EBU's TV channels. To avoid frequencies attribution problems in C-band the satellites were designed to operate in Ku-band. The OTS program had provided test transmissions with small Earth stations using on board powerful transponders.
• Eutelsat was officialy created in 1985. The initial mission was to complete the telephone networks without acting contrary to Intelsat laws. In fact, Eutelsat mainly makes profit with TV channels (65% of its profits).
• Initially established to address satellite communications demand in Western Europe, Eutelsat rapidly developed its infrastructure to expand coverage to additional markets, such as Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, and the Middle East, the African continent, and large parts of Asia and the Americas from the 1990s.
• In 1990 Eutelsat began the deployment of the second generation Eutelsat spacecraft procured directly from Aerospatiale and based on the Spacebus-2000 design. Each Eutelsat 2 spacecraft supports 16 transponders (with eight spares) operating at 14/11 GHz and 50 W output power. In orbit the spacecraft spans 22.4 m across the two rectangular solar arrays which generate up to 3.5 kW. Eutelsat 2 employs two, 1.6 m diameter multifeed reflectors, one on each side of the spacecraft bus.
• Eutelsat was the first satellite operator in Europe to broadcast television channels direct-to-home. It developed its premium neighbourhood of five Hot Bird satellites in the mid-1990s to offer capacity that would be able to attract hundreds of channels to the same orbital location, appealing to widespread audiences for consumer satellite TV.
• Throughout 1993-1994, the Eutelsat 2 constellation consisted of four spacecraft: Eutelsat-2 F1 at 13 degrees E, Eutelsat-2 F2 at 10 degrees E, Eutelsat-2 F3 at 16 degrees E, and Eutelsat-2 F4 at 7 degrees E. Eutelsat-2 F5 was scheduled to join the network in 1994 but was lost in an Ariane-44LP H10+ launch failure on 24 January 1994. The last of the series, the Eutelsat-2 F6 spacecraft was modified scheduled for launch in 1995 under the name Hot Bird 1. The vehicle will be essentially the same as its predecessors, but the transponder output power will be increased from 50 W to 70 W.
• With the general liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in Europe, the IGO’s operations and activities were transferred to a private company called Eutelsat S.A. and should be privatized as a French company by 2 July 2001.
• In April 2005, the principal shareholders of Eutelsat S.A. grouped their investment in a new entity (Eutelsat Communications), which is now the holding company of the Group owning 95.2% of Eutelsat S.A. on October 6, 2005. Currently it owns 96.0 % of Eutelsat S.A.

Source: http://www.eutelsat.com/investors/pdf/ETL-consolidated-financial-statements-300609.pdf