In November 2020, Viasat purchased Eutelsat's share of Euro Broadband Infrastructure (EBI) for $166 million (140 million euro), giving Viasat total ownership of the KA-SAT satellite and related ground infrastructure. The purchase was completed on April 30, 2021.[4]
The spacecraft is equipped with four multi-feed deployable antennas with enhanced pointing accuracy and a high-efficiency repeater.[5] It is configured with 82 spotbeams.[2] Each spotbeam is associated with a 237 MHz wide transponder, allowing a data bit rate throughput of 475 Mbit/s per spot.
The spacecraft power is about 14 kW and the payload DC power is 11 kW. The solar array power provides up to 16 kW.
The payload mass is about 1000 kg, the dry mass is about 3170 kg, the launch mass was 6100 kg.
The manoeuvre lifetime in orbit is estimated to 16 years.
KA-SAT features a high level of frequency reuse enabling the system to achieve a total capacity of more than 90 Gbit/s.[6][7]
KA-SAT coverage over Europe and the Mediterranean Basin (different colors show frequency reuse)
The satellite operates in conjunction with ten terrestrial teleports (two of them as a backup) providing Internet gateway services, parts of the Eutelsat's Tooway service,[5] all of them linked by the "KA-SAT ring", a terrestrial telecommunication high-speed network. The service is centrally operated from Skylogic's NOC based in Torino (Italy) (Skylogic is a subsidiary of Eutelsat).
KA-SAT carries the Irish Saorsat[8] TV service accessed using a KA-Band feedhorn LNBF, for areas in Ireland where Irish Digital Terrestrial TV (Saorview) is inaccessible.[9]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
