SES-6


SES-6 is a commercial geostationary communication satellite owned and operated by SES S.A.

Launch

Constructed by EADS Astrium, it was launched on 3 June 2013 at 09:18:31 UTC from Baikonour by Proton-M / Briz-M rocket and carries 43 C-band and 48 Ku-band transponders. With 43 C-Band and 48 Ku-Band 36 MHz equivalent transponders, the 6010 kg satellite has a design life of 15 years. It is built on the Eurostar-3000 bus.

Market

The SES-6 satellite replaces the aging NSS-806. It is nearly twice as large as NSS-806, with two C-band beams and has a total of five steerable Ku-band beams, including four beams for the Americas and one beam covering the Atlantic Ocean region. The C-band beams cover the East Atlantic and West Atlantic. The Ku-band beams cover East Atlantic, West Atlantic and Brazil.
SES-6 offers 50% more C-Band capacity for the cable community, and retain the unique capability to distribute content between the Americas and Europe on the same high powered beam. In addition SES-6 offers a substantial upgrade to Ku-Band capacity in the region with dedicated high power beams over Brazil, South cone, the Andean region, North America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, while also offering an innovative payload to support mobile maritime and aeronautical services on the highly demanded routes from North America, the Gulf of Mexico, across the North Atlantic and to Europe.
Following the launch, SES announced a long-term capacity agreement to provide a new direct-to-home platform in Brazil with Brazilian telecommunication group Oi, which would become the largest user of the new satellite.