Hispasat is a group of Spanish communication satellites . They were developed by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (National Institute for Aeronautical Technology) and the European Space Agency. It now belongs to Eutelsat (27.69%) and other private shareholders from Spain.
First satellite to be launched was the Hispasat 1-A, in 11 September 1992 using an Ariane 4, from the Centre Spatial Guyanais, in Kourou, (French Guiana) and put into geostationary orbit 36.000 km height of Equator at 30° West.
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Hispasat-1C and Hispasat-1D were built by Alcatel Space, based on a Spacebus 3000B2 platform.
Amazonas 2 was built by Astrium based on its Eurostar E3000 satellite bus, for on-orbit delivery in 2009.[1] Arianespace launched the satellite on October 1, 2009 from ELA-3 at the Guiana Space Centre using an Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle. The same launch vehicle also carried the COMSATBw-1 communications satellite used by the Bundeswehr for secure military communications.[2]
Amazonas 2 is operated at 61° West, providing relay services with 54 Ku band and 10 C band transponders.
On July 6 Hispasat chose Space Systems/Loral as a manufacturer of the Amazonas-3 satellite.[3]
Hispasat usually carries television and radio streams from Spain (Digital+) and Portugal (ZON and Meo), as well as Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries from Latin America, such as Cotelsat.