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August 15, 2008 was a special day for the Japanese commercial satellite market. At 5:44 a.m. (Japan time) the French Ariane 5 rocket launched from the Guiana Space Center, French Guiana, carrying within its bulk Superbird-7, Japan’s first domestically produced commercial communications satellite.
Superbird-7 is a next-generation communications satellite manufactured for Space Communications Corporation (SCC, currently SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation) of Japan by Mitsubishi Electric under a “delivery-in-orbit” contract. The order, received on October 31, 2005, made Mitsubishi Electric the first Japanese company to enter the commercial communications satellite market; to date all 18 satellites currently operated by Japanese broadcast and communications companies have been U.S.-made due to overwhelming market dominance by U.S. companies.
Mitsubishi Electric has handled all aspects of the project–from manufacturing and delivery to launch procurement and extensive testing in stationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above sea level–and will also provide full operational support during the satellite’s 15-year life span. The satellite, which weighs about five tons, uses Mitsubishi Electric’s original DS2000 satellite bus platform, originally developed for the Engineering Test Satellite-8 (ETS-8) made for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
The well-equipped facilities of the company’s Kamakura Works in Kanagawa Prefecture made it possible to run production and system tests in a single building, including simulations of the vacuum and extremely low temperature of space, acoustic and vibration tests, and tests of the compact radio antenna. The Kamakura Works is also fully equipped to run in-orbit checks of the satellite’s performance and functions. |
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