On 20 December 2008 HOT BIRD™ 9 was successfully launched with an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guyana.

SSC was involved in the LEOP operations by supporting CNES, the main contractor for the LEOP operation. SSC offered services through PrioraNet, a worldwide network of satellite ground stations. Two stations within PrioraNet was used this time, the Hawaii Satellite Station and the Dongara satellite Station in western Australia.

The hub of SSC activities for this mission was the Network Management Center (NMC) at Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden, run and owned by SSC. The NMC is a distributed system that provides customers with a single-point of interface to a world of ground station assets. Spacecraft and network operations personnel staff the NMC around the clock to provide customers with the highest levels of service and support during all phases of a mission.

HOT BIRD™ 9 is built by EADS-Astrium, and will join Eutelsat’s 13 degrees East neighbourhood, serving Europe, North Africa and the Middle-East with telecommunication services.

SSC will provide the same kind of support for Hot Bird 10, scheduled for a launch in 2009.

Read more about Hotbird 9

For further information please contact
Mr. Christer Jonsson, SSC HB9 LEOP Project Manager
Phone: +46 980 721 96
E-mail: christer.jonsson@ssc.se