A CZ-3 rocket sent the Zhongxin-26 communication satellite to orbit on Feb 23. This satellite, a first of China to have more than 100Gbps of bandwidth, will be serving China and surrounding areas.
据“中国航天科技集团”公众号消息,2月23日19时49分,中国首颗超百Gbps容量的高通量卫星——中星26号卫星搭乘长征三号乙运载火箭从西昌卫星发射中心起飞。随后,卫星进入预定轨道,发射任务取得圆满成功。
中星26号卫星由中国航天科技集团有限公司所属中国卫通负责采购和在轨运行管理,是中国首颗超百Gbps容量的高通量卫星,也是新一代满足卫星互联网及通信传输要求的高通量宽带通信卫星。
中星26号卫星由航天科技集团五院负责研制,采用自主研发的东方红四号增强型卫星平台,预计定点于东经125度,配置Ka频段载荷,主要覆盖中国全境及周边区域。
执行本次任务的长三乙火箭由航天科技集团一院抓总研制,采用长三甲系列火箭统一构型设计思路,采用4000F整流罩。该状态火箭全长56.326米,全箭起飞质量约456吨。
The more important part is this.
So Chinasat-26 serves areas surrounding China, MiddleEast, ASEAN & North Pacific. So I'd imagine this includes Central Asia also. Basically the most immediate BRI countries.中星26号等Ka高通量卫星容量超过100Gbps,覆盖中国及周边海域、中东、东南亚及北太平洋区域。
后续规划的卫星容量约300Gbps,可覆盖“一带一路”沿线。
Follow on satellites will have 300Gbps and cover BRI routes. That's quite significant. Their goal is to serve the world and provide this service to the world.
for all the aviation fans out there, a major competitor to this is Viasat, which launched Viasat-2 in 2017 which covers all the routes your typical US airlines would fly and give them high speed internet access
properties of Viasat-2. Note it has 2.6x the capacity of Chinasat-26 and was launched more than 5 years ago.
- Speed: Up to 100 Mbps
- Capacity: 260 Gbps
- Weight of satellite: 6,400kg or 7.4 tons
- Service launch date: February 2018
Edit: took a look at it a little more. Looks like Viasat and ChinaSat are actually partners for IFC. For example, Sichuan Airlines recently just added Viasat IFC that connects to ChinaSat.
I guess their main competitor here is Gogo and Intelsat which uses the older Ku band satellite technology.
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