 This follows the highly successful launch of the 6.4 tonne satellite aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, which blasted off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, at 6.30 am yesterday, Australian east coast time.
Once in its final orbital position, Sky Muster will begin several months of testing to ensure all systems are functioning properly. NBN will then begin integrating the satellite with 10 base stations around Australia, and commissioning 101 Ka-band spot beams that will link ground equipment to the satellite. Further tests will then begin to ensure that links with the 10 ground stations, retail service provider systems, network management systems and the Internet are all working correctly. “This will continue until we are confident we can make the service available commercially. We are planning on being able to do this in Q2 2016,” said NBN satellite program director Matt Dawson. Sky Muster is to be joined by another satellite in the second half of next year. NBN Co believes the two will feed the Internet at 25Mbps down and 5Mbps up to some 200,000 rural and remote premises across Australia, as well as Christmas, Cocos, Lord Howe, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands. |
