Rumour mill has Sirius 2 moving from 5° E to 23.5° E

Rumour has it that the Sirius 2 satellite will ultimately be shunted across the arc to join forces with Astra 1D and Astra 3A at the orbital location 23.5° East to provide additional capacity for DTH services.

Sirius 2 is owned by the Scandinavian enterprise Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB) of which Astra SES is the 75% majority stakeholder.

NSAB is currently preparing for the launch of Sirius 4 next spring/summer which will be deployed alongside Sirius 3 at NSAB’s orbital position of 5° East.

Sirius 4 is a multi-mission Ku/Ka-band satellite to be built on Lockheed Martin’s reliable A2100AX platform, and would presumably free up the Sirius 2 satellite when it becomes fully operational.

SES Astra has previously expressed its desire to further develop the orbital position of 23.5° East for use in both German and Dutch direct to home broadcasts.

There has to-date been no official announcement on the future of Sirius 2.

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