Astra 1N satellite designed and manufactured by Astrium for the satellite operator SES Astra has left Astrium's facility in Toulouse, where it had undergone its final integration and test campaign. Astra 1N will now be transported to Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for its launch by an Ariane 5 vehicle early July 2011.

Astra 1N will deliver direct-to-home (DTH) services, including digital and high definition (HD) television with pan-European coverage, and is planned to mainly serve the German, French and Spanish markets. It will first provide interim capacity at 28.2E, and will subsequently be moved to SES Astra's prime location at 19.2E for primary and backup services.

As prime contractor for Astra 1N, Astrium has supplied both the payload and the Eurostar E3000 platform for this satellite equipped with 62 transponders in the Ku frequency band. Astra 1N will have a launch mass of 5,350 kg and a spacecraft power of 13kW at the end of its 15-year designed lifetime. Launch and Early Orbit Phase operations will be conducted from the Astrium spacecraft control centre in Toulouse.

Astra 1N will be the fourth Eurostar satellite in the Astra fleet following the successful launch of Astra 3B in May 2010. Astra 1N will also become the 23rd Eurostar E3000 in orbit, with Astrium's Eurostar series accumulating nearly 400 years of successful in-orbit operations.

Astrium is currently in the process of designing and manufacturing five more satellites for SES based on its Eurostar E3000 platform: Astra 2E, Astra 2F, Astra 2G and Astra 5B, are scheduled for launch in several steps between 2012 and 2014 and are designed to deliver high quality broadcast, VSAT and broadband services in Europe and Africa for SES Astra; whilst SES-6, will support SES World Skies' growth in Latin America, offering 50 percent more C-Band capacity for the cable community, and retaining the unique capability to distribute content between the Americas and Europe on the same high powered beam.