Turkey launches new satellite into space
By Nur Banu Aras
Turkey has successfully launched its new satellite Turksat 5B from Cape Canaveral Base in Florida, Yeni Shafak has reported.
The Turksat 5B communication satellite that is considered to be the most powerful for its useful payload capacity and power values was sent into space with the Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Space X Company.
It was added that the capacity efficiency of the Turksat 5B is at least 20 times higher than Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) class satellites. As the country's highest payload capacity satellite, Turksat 5B has a launch weight of 4.5 tons and a power capacity of 15 kilowatts.
Along with Turkey, the satellite will serve in a wide coverage area that includes the whole of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, North and East Africa, Nigeria, South Africa, and close neighbor countries.
It will provide a data transmission capacity of more than 55 Gbps (billions of bits per second) in total, with a Ka-band payload using frequency reuse and multi-beam coverage concepts.
The Turksat 5B will take its place effectively in commercial sectors such as maritime and aviation where satellite communication is used.
As part of the Domestic Industry Contribution Program, Turksat 5B is the first project that domestically designed and manufactured equipment will be sent into space on a commercial communication satellite.
The high data capacity of the satellite will enable access to the remote places in Turkey facilitating the establishment of internet infrastructure.
With the launch of Turksat 5B, the number of active communication satellites in Turkey will increase to five and the total number of satellites to eight. Turkey has seven active satellites, four of them are used for communication (Turksat 3A, Turksat 4A, Turksat 4B, Turksat 5A) and three for observation (Gokturk-1, Gokturk-2 and RASAT) purposes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a video message to the launching ceremony at the Cape Canaveral Base, praising Elon Musk, the owner of Space X, for not giving in to the blackmail and pressure of anti-Turkey lobbies.
“Today, we launched Turksat 5B, the most powerful and highest-capacity communication satellite of our country, into space. In this satellite project, we also preferred Space X's Falcon 9 rocket. On behalf of myself and my nation, I congratulate Mr. (Elon) Musk and Space X for not giving in to the blackmail and pressure of the anti-Turkey lobbies.”
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