{"id":16356,"date":"2015-04-29T20:16:13","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T12:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/arabsat-contracts-go-to-lockheed-martin-arianespace-and-spacex\/"},"modified":"2015-04-29T20:16:13","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T12:16:13","slug":"arabsat-contracts-go-to-lockheed-martin-arianespace-and-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/arabsat-contracts-go-to-lockheed-martin-arianespace-and-spacex\/","title":{"rendered":"Arabsat contracts go to Lockheed Martin, Arianespace and SpaceX"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Lockheed Martin-built Arabsat 6A and HellasSat 4\/SaudiGeoSat 1 satellites. Credit: Lockheed Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lockheed Martin will build two communications satellites for Saudi Arabia\u2019s Arabsat, and Arianespace and SpaceX will launch the commercial relay platforms under contracts valued at $650 million announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Riyadh-based Arabsat said in a press release that it had signed deals with Lockheed Martin to manufacture the two spacecraft \u2014 named HellasSat 4\/SaudiGeoSat 1 and Arabsat 6A.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, Arianespace said the HellasSat 4\/SaudiGeoSat 1 satellite would launch in 2018 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. The craft has launch mass of around 6,000 kilograms, or about 13,227 pounds, and will ride in the upper berth of the Ariane 5\u2019s dual-payload adapter structure.<\/p>\n

Arabsat said it will sign a contract with SpaceX to launch the Arabsat 6A satellite. Arabsat 6A is sized to launch on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy rocket, according to industry officials.<\/p>\n

The company did not identify a launch site for Arabsat 6A, which Lockheed Martin officials said would be ready to fly in 2018, when SpaceX plans to have launch pads ready at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and near Brownsville, Texas, to support Falcon Heavy launches.<\/p>\n

The Falcon Heavy\u2019s inaugural test flight is scheduled later this year.<\/p>\n

The agreements give Lockheed Martin its first new commercial satellite contracts since 2011, when it closed a deal with the Australian satellite company NewSat to build the Jabiru 1 spacecraft. The Jabiru program is now in doubt after NewSat ran into financial trouble.<\/p>\n

Both Arabsat satellites will be based on Lockheed Martin\u2019s A2100 spacecraft bus and will be constructed at the company\u2019s facility in Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great step forward to support both Arabsat and the kingdom\u2019s long-term strategy to provide consumers and commercial customers with robust communications resources,\u201d said Mike Hamel, vice president and general manager of commercial space at Lockheed Martin. \u201cThe modernized A2100 satellite platform is ideally suited to their mission of connecting people and societies through reliable telecommunications services.\u201d<\/p>\n

The HellasSat 4\/SaudiGeoSat 1 bird is a joint project between Greek operator HellasSat, a subsidiary of Arabsat, and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, or KACST. The spacecraft will be positioned in geostationary orbit at 39 degrees east longitude, providing television broadcast and other telecom services to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n

KACST will lead research and development efforts and serve as a technology partner to a new limited liability company to be set up in Saudi Arabia by Lockheed Martin and and Taqnia Space Co., which is backed by the Saudi government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company will become a leading one in the field of satellites services and applications and will provide satellite telecommunications services to a wide range of remote areas and for the marine and air use for both the governmental and the private sectors,\u201d said Abdullah Bin Mohammed Al-Osaimi, Taqnia\u2019s CEO, in a press release. \u201cThe partnership with Lockheed Martin for the satellite manufacture will provide the Middle East markets with the required satellites in different orbits in addition to the ground satellite stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S.-Saudi joint venture \u201cwould develop talent and infrastructure that will support space capabilities and services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,\u201d Lockheed Martin said in a press release.<\/p>\n

The Arabsat 6A satellite will beam \u201cstate-of-the-art\u201d communications signals from an operating post in geostationary orbit at 30.5 degrees east longitude, according to Arabsat.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s concept of the Lockheed Martin-built Arabsat 6A and HellasSat 4\/SaudiGeoSat 1 satellites. Credit: Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin will build two communications satellites for Saudi Arabia\u2019s Arabsat, and Arianespace and SpaceX will launch the commercial relay platforms under contracts valued at $650 million announced Wednesday. Riyadh-based Arabsat said in a press release that it had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1589,2671,1540,498,678,4071,4072,472],"class_list":["post-16356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-arabsat","tag-arabsat-6a","tag-ariane-5","tag-arianespace","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-hellassat-4-saudigeosat-1","tag-kacst","tag-lockheed-martin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}