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Thales Alenia Space wins contracts to built payloads for Russia's Express AM8, AT1 and AT2 satellites

22 September 2010

Cannes, September 22, 2010 – Thales Alenia Space announces tri-partite contracts with RSCC (Russian Space Operator) and JSC “ISS – Reshetnev Company” to supply the Express AM8, AT1 and AT2 communications satellite payloads.

Thales Alenia Space will be the communications payloads supplier. The satellite will be based on an Express 1000 platform provided by JSC “ISS – Reshetnev Company” and the satellites will be integrated and tested in ISS’ premises, Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

Express AM8 will operate at 14°W for a 15 years lifetime. The payload power is about 5.9 kW. AM8 will carry 24 active C-band transponders covering Europe-Africa and America, 16 active Ku-band transponders covering Europe-Asia, Africa, North and South America and 2 active L-band transponders.

Express AT1 will operate at 56°E for a 15 years lifetime. The payload power is about
5.6 kW. AT1 will carry 32 active Ku-band transponders over West and East Russia.

Express AT2 will operate at 36°E for a 15 years lifetime. The payload power is about
3 kW. AT2 will carry 16 active Ku-band transponders over West Russia.

“Cooperation with Russia is strategically important for Thales Alenia Space who does plan to continue to involve Russian space industry and expertise on a larger and deeper level” declared Reynald Seznec, President and CEO of Thales Alenia Space. “For AM8, AT1 and AT2 satellites, Thales Alenia Space has proposed to its customer and to the Russian Authorities to further deepen existing collaboration and develop a new industrial partnership”, he added.

Thales Alenia Space has a history of successful cooperation of more than 15 years with Russia since the SESAT programme. RSCC is a very important customer to Thales Alenia Space and for a great number of its satellites, Thales Alenia Space has provided payloads, which were integrated with Russian platforms: Express-A1, Express-A2, Express-A3, Express-A4, Express-AM11, Express-AM22, Express-AM2, Express-AM3, Express-AM33, Express-AM44 (all with ISS), plus Express-MD1 and Express-MD2 (with Khrunichev).

The partnership with the Russian industry began in the early 2000's when Thales Alenia Space and ISS started joint marketing of satellites based on ISS' Express-1000 platform. The combination of ISS and Thales Alenia Space products and skills to serve this strategic partnership has recently triggered two important projects on the international market, namely Amos 5 and Telkom 3. With these tri-partite contracts announced today, the strategic cooperation between Thales Alenia Space and ISS is further reinforced and once again proven to be a successful one.

About Thales Alenia Space
European leader in satellite systems and a major player in orbital infrastructures, Thales Alenia Space is a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Finmeccanica (33%). Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio embody the two groups’ “Space Alliance”. Thales Alenia Space sets the global standard in solutions for space telecoms, radar and optical Earth observation, defense and security, navigation and science. The company, which achieved revenues of Euro 2 billion in 2009, has a total of 7,200 employees located in 9 industrial sites in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
www.thalesaleniaspace.com

Thales Alenia Space Press Contacts
Florence Pontieux Tel: +33 (0)1 57 77 91 26 florence.pontieux@thalesaleniaspace.com
Sandrine Bielecki Tel: +33 (0)4 92 92 70 94 sandrine.bielecki@thalesaleniaspace.com

About RSCC
The Russian Satellite Communication Company (RSCC) is the Russian state satellite operator whose spacecraft provide a global coverage. RSCC was founded in 1967 and belongs to the ten largest world satellite operators in terms of satellites and orbital slots. The company possesses the largest satellite constellation in Russia located in the geostationary orbital arc from 14 West to 140 East and cover the whole territory of Russia, CIS, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific region, North and South America, and Australia. The company includes five Satellite Communications Centers (SCC): Dubna, Bear Lakes, Skolkovo, Zheleznogorsk, Khabarovsk and the Shabolovka Technical Center in Moscow as well as its own high-speed optical-fiber digital network. As the national satellite operator RSCC meets the important state tasks on providing mobile presidential and governmental communications, federal TV & Radio signal transmission over the territory of Russia and the most countries of the world. The company pays serious attention to implementing national projects. RSCC closely interacts with the Russian state authorities in the field of informational and telecommunications and broadcast systems development. RSCC provides a full range of communications and broadcasting services using its own terrestrial engineering facilities and satellite constellation including up-to-date spacecraft of Express-AM, Express-A, Bonum-1, Ekran-M series and a part of the French W4 satellite capacity. The company’s satellites offer wide opportunities to establish TV & Radio broadcasting inclusive DTH, IPTV, MPEG-4 services, broadband Internet access, data transmission, videoconferencing, VSAT network deployment, departmental and corporative communications networks worldwide. The company has its own satellite TT&C system. At present, RSCC controls and monitors the Eutelsat, Intelsat, etc. satellites using its engineering facilities.

The more detailed information is available on web-site: www.rscc.ru