Jabiru 2 footprint. Photo: NewSat

[Via Satellite 11-17-2014] Airbus Defence and Space has completed Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) operations, and in-orbit trials for the Measat 3b satellite. NewSat’s Jabiru 2 hosted payload is now also operational and is supporting its first carriers.
Measat has collocated the new satellite with Measat 3 and Measat 3a at 91.5 degrees east. From there, Jabiru 2 provides Ku-band coverage over Australia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. NewSat is targeting customers in the telecommunications, media, aeronautical, government, maritime, and oil and gas industries.

“The big benefit of the Jabiru 2 program for us, compared to leasing capacity of an existing operator, is that we were able to work with Measat to design the beam exactly the way we wanted it to look, the coverage area, the power focus and the peak performance area. It’s a great opportunity for us to have design influence in the early days and our operations team is now scaling up their activity and their involvement to a greater degree than we have in the past. It’s a good exercise for us to go through as we approach launch of Jabiru 1,” said David Ball, CTO of NewSat.