 25 10 2000 The United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Thuraya satellite service sent is closer to commercialisation with the launch of the Thuraya-1 satellite. It began to send back signals, the official WAM news agency reported Saturday evening. The mobile telecommunications satellite sent up Saturday morning by a Russia-Ukraine Zenith-3SL rocket from a sea platform near Equator has entered the geostationary orbit where it should send out signals every two hours to the ground station in Italy. The heaviest commercial satellite and also the first mobile satellite telecommunications system from the Middle East region blasted off at 0552 GMT after two delays. Following liftoff, Chairman of Thuraya Mohammed Omran said that the successful launch of Thuraya-1 has taken 99 countries in the world to new frontiers of world-class mobile satellite telecommunications. "Thuraya-1 will enable more than one third of the world's population to have a convenient, reliable and affordable access to modern telecommunications, wherever they are in urban hubs or rural outposts," reiterated Omran. Based on the Boeing 702 (formerly the Hughes 702) body- stabilized design, Thuraya-1 will operate in geostationary orbit, transmitting and receiving calls through a single 12.25-meter aperture reflector. On-board digital signal processing will route calls directly from one handheld unit to another or through a terrestrial network. The 1 billion U.S. dollars contract signed in 1997 between Thuraya and Hughes included the manufacture of two high power geo- synchronous satellites. Thuraya has the capacity for 13,750 simultaneous calls. Designed for a 12-year lifespan, the Thuraya-1 satellite will be positioned into the orbit, 36,000 kilometers above the earth.
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