Echostar 5 to go to junkyard orbit

Echostar 5 to go to junkyard orbit
Quote:
Farewell Echostar 5
July 31, 2009

The Echostar V satellite was launched on September 23rd, 1999 to service North America from the 110 degree West Longitude orbital location. After serving for awhile at the 110 location the satellite was moved to serve at the 129 degree orbital location. Earlier this year Echostar V was moved to service Echostar’s 148 degree West Longitude location.

Earlier this week Echostar filed with the FCC to de-orbit the failing satellite. Echostar V will be put out to space pasture on August 3rd.

Echostar 5 was originally know as Sky 1 (or MCI 1) and was intended for use by a venture called American Sky Broadcasting (AskyB for short) this satellite company was a venture between MCI and News Corp. In early 1999 the satellite and the license for 110 was sold to Echostar.

The satellite has had a number of problems over the years.

In 2001 3 of the satellites traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) went bad, forcing Echostar to flip on the spares. In July of 2001 Echostar V lost one of its three momentum wheels.

In August of 2001 the satellite lost one of its thrusters causing an outage but was quickly brought back into operation.

They lost another TWTA in the 3rd quarter of 2001 and lost the second of 3 momentum wheels, which required Echostar to use thrusters to keep the spacecraft pointing in the right direction.

Echostar V lost 7 of its approximately 96 solar array strings, then as time went on the satellite lost more. Due to the solar array failures they had to reduce the number of in use transponders on the bird in order to save energy.

In January 2003 a component failed on board which affect its ability to receiver telemetry from certain on board equipment.

At the 148 degree orbital location Echostar 5 has been servicing locals to residents of Rapid City, SD; Casper, WY and Billings, MT as well as a number of required public interest channels.

Today as Echostar gets ready to send off Echostar V on its final journey that programming has been removed from the satellite.

This will leave Echostar and Dish Network with no satellite at their 148 orbital location. At this time there I s no word if they plan on replacing the satellite. Echostar also had a license for transponder space at 157 degrees but gave up that slot a few years ago. Because of how far west the location is it may not make any sense for Dish to put another satellite in that location.

Farewell Echostar V and thanks for all the great programming you delivered over the years!

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