Artist’s rendition of Eutelsat 65 West A. Photo: Eutelsat

[Via Satellite 05-02-2016] Eutelsat’s new satellite, Eutelsat 65 West A, which launched March 9, is now fully powered up and ready for service across Brazil and Latin America, the operator said May 2. Furthermore, the company also announced the completion of an Extremely High Frequency (EHF) transmission test with Space Systems Loral (SSL) using an experimental payload on the satellite.

Located at 65 degrees west, Eutelsat 65 West A is a tri-band satellite with commercial payloads in C-, Ku- and Ka-band. Eutelsat also established a new Network Operations Center (NOC) in Santana do Parnaiba in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Through the EHF experiment, Eutelsat and SSL are analyzing the potential of the Q/V band (40 to 50 GHz) as an enabler of future terabit-level High Throughput Satellite (HTS) broadband programs. By offloading backhaul links between a satellite and its hubs from the Ka-band to the Q/V band, the operator could make significantly more bandwidth available for users while reducing the number of hubs, thus lowering down the cost per bit. The data the companies gather from the experiment will help steer the design of adaptive techniques and hub architectures that will shape the blueprint of future broadband communications systems, according to the companies.