EADS Astrium awarded Korea's first geostationary multi-functional satellite contract
Seoul, 17 May 2005
EADS Astrium has been awarded a contract from the Korea Aerospace and Research Institute, KARI, to design and manufacture the first Korean multi-function geostationary satellite “COMS”.
The highly advanced COMS satellite has three payloads; one for meteorology, one for ocean observation and one for communications. COMS will provide meteorology data to end-users around the globe, oceanography data for the Korean peninsula and experimental communications services in Ka-band, all from its orbital locations 116º and 138° East.
COMS is the third Earth observation spacecraft designed and manufactured for the Asia-Pacific region by EADS Astrium confirming the company’s leading position in the market.
As prime contractor for COMS, EADS Astrium will be responsible for the design and build of the satellite including both the meteorology and ocean imagers - the communications payload will be provided by KARI in Korea, as a Customer Furnished Equipment.
* COMS provides continuous image monitoring with the extraction of high resolution meteorological data from its multi-spectral imager. It will give early warning of hazardous weather conditions including storms, floods, sandstorms, etc and provide data on the long-term changes in sea surface temperatures and cloud patterns. Earth observation data from COMS will be relayed to a processing station. Once processed, the data will be resent via the COMS satellite to weather forecasters, Earth observation centres etc around the world.
* COMS will also carry an Ocean Imager to monitor marine environments around the Korean peninsula and provide data (on chlorophyll etc) to assist the fishing industry in the region. It will also monitor both long and short-term changes to the marine ecosystem.
* The communications payload on-board COMS will allow “in-orbit verification” of advanced communication technologies and will support experiments covering wide-band multi-media communication services.
The spacecraft will have a launch mass of 2.4 tonnes and a spacecraft power of 2.5kW at end of life. The satellite, operating from geostationary orbit, will provide services for a minimum of seven years. COMS is primarily based on EADS Astrium’s Eurostar E3000 spacecraft platform – the latest version of the company’s highly successful Eurostar communications satellite family. Four Eurostar E3000 spacecraft are already operating in geostationary orbit. Seven more are in production.
COMS is KARI’s first geostationary satellite and will provide Korea with its own meteorology and ocean data thus giving increased independence. COMS is part of a 15-year Korean space plan begun in the 1990s, and followed systematically ever since.
Antoine Bouvier, CEO of EADS Astrium, said: “I am delighted that we have won this contract for Korea’s first multi-mission geostationary satellite. It demonstrates KARI’s confidence in EADS Astrium and builds on the success already achieved with the Korean observation satellite Kompsat 2 due for launch in November this year. I am confident that these contracts will pave the way for further successful, long-term cooperation with KARI.”
KARI (www.kari.re.kr) leads the development of Korean space programs and technologies and has extensive space experience through the development of Kompsat-1 and Kompsat-2.
EADS Astrium is Europe’s leading satellite system specialist. Its activities cover complete civil and military telecommunications and Earth observation and meteorology systems, science and navigation programmes, and all spacecraft avionics and equipment.
EADS Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS SPACE, which is dedicated to providing civil and defense space systems. In 2004 EADS SPACE had a turnover of €2.6 billion and 11,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services.
In 2004, EADS generated revenues of €31.8 billion and employed a workforce of more than 110,000.
COMS Technical characteristics
| Spacecraft: | based on Eurostar E3000 |
| Launch mass: | 2.4 tonnes |
| DC power / End of life: | 2.5 kW |
| Design lifetime: | 7 years + |
| Orbital location: | Geostationary orbit, 116 or 138 degrees East longitude |
Payload:
Meteo Imager: the Imager is a multi-spectral channel two-axis scanning radiometer, and is capable of providing imagery and radiometric information of the Earth's surface and cloud cover over 5-channels - one visible channel (1km ground resolution) and 4 Infra-Red channels (4km resolution).
Ocean colour Imager: the advanced Ocean Imager has a sophisticated focal plane providing for the first time ever, ocean data from geostationary orbit. The Ocean Imager will provide data over 8 imaging bands in the visible spectrum. Ground resolution over Korea is 500m.
Meteorology Data Dissemination function: Using an S-band receiving antenna and an L-band transmitting antenna, this function will allow dissemination in HRIT and LRIT format of weather data.
Communications Payload: The Ka-Band payload will provide three regional beams simultaneously. The Ka-Band Payload will provide the beam switching function for high speed multimedia services including the internet via satellite in the public communications network for all coverage.
Press contact:
Rémi ROLAND
EADS SPACE (FR)
Tel.: +33 (0) 1 42 24 27 34
Alistair SCOTT
EADS SPACE (UK)
Tel.: +44 (0) 1438 77 3698
Mathias PIKELJ
EADS SPACE (GER)
Tel.: +49 (0) 7545 8 91 23
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