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Loral
Marketing New Satellite Bus
 Space
Systems/Loral, Palo Alto, has completed development work on a new
satellite design and is ready to begin manufacturing the new
spacecraft. Loral is now seeking customers for their new
geostationary satellite bus, dubbed LS 20.20.
The LS 20.20
satellite bus can carry as many as 150 transponders, about three
times the transponder capacity of Loral’s existing FS 1300 model.
The new satellite can operate at up to 30 kilowatts, twice the power
output of the current FS 1300 design. The capabilities of added
power and transponder capacity means satellites based on the LS
20.20 design will be able to carry more information than spacecraft
using earlier busses. Each LS 20.20 satellite will weigh 5,000 -
7,000 kg (11,000 - 15,500 lbm) and require a 5 m (16 ft) fairing.
Among the new technologies Loral incorporated into the LS 20.20
design are more capable solar panels, higher-capacity batteries and
an improved ion-propulsion system to control the satellite’s
position in orbit.
The LS 20.20
represents Loral’s biggest advance in satellite power and
transponder capacity since 1993, when the company introduced an
improved FS 1300 design that operated at 9 kilowatts, up from 5
kilowatts. In the years since the FS 1300 design was increased to 9
kilowatts of power, Loral has sold only one less-powerful
geostationary communications satellite.
Loral spent 1999
developing the design for the new satellite, “starting with a
clean sheet of paper” to determine what new technologies needed to
be developed to make it possible to construct a new satellite, and
2000 in developing those technologies.
Competitors
for the 20.20 include Boeing Satellite Systems BSS 702 and Alcatel
Space’s Spacebus 3000.
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