EUTE 5W B

Additional information EUTE 5W B

Eutelsat 5 West B is a geostationary communications satellite of the French satellite communications company Eutelsat. It was launched on 9 October 2019 at 10:17 UTC on a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The satellite was built by Northrop Grumman and Airbus Defence and Space and has an operational life of more than 15 years.
Situated at 5° west, it will broadcasts satellite television, radio and other digital data. It will enter in operational service at the end of the year 2019.
In a statement on 24 October 2019 on EUTELSAT 5 West B, Eutelsat said that the company is currently investigating an incident on one of the two solar arrays on its EUTELSAT 5 West B satellite.The company is working to assess the potential impact (less electric energy) on the performance of the satellite (for broadcasting).On January 17 2020 Eutelsat released a statement, saying that one of the two solar arrays of the satellite was unusable, and the resulting power shortage meant the satellite could only work with 45% capacity. The GEO-3 hosted payload of the European GNSS Agency aboard the satellite was unaffected by the power loss and is expected to operate normally. The satellite is expected to enter service in January 2020. Eutelsat 5 West B was planned to replace the ageing Eutelsat 5 West A satellite, but due to this power problem facing Eutelsat 5 West B, the Eutelsat 5 West A will remain operational longer-than-originally-planned in a fuel-saving inclined orbit. This extension of Eutelsat 5 West A's operations is part of the mitigation activities engaged by Eutelsat because of the problems of Eutelsat 5 West B. Eutelsat 5 West B's problems will cost Eutelsat some millions of dollars in the short time frame; in the longer time frame, Eutelsat has not (as of 17 January 2020) decided the size of an insurance claim it will make because of Eutelsat 5 West B.


== References ==

Average inclination EUTE 5W B