Thales will provide laser payloads for Hellas Sat 5

Hellas Sat, which holds a majority stake in Arabsat, has reached a memorandum of understanding with Thales Alenia Space to collaborate on the development of a luminous communication payload for an upcoming new mission that will be launched on the future Hellas Sat 5 telecommunications satellite, which will operate at 39 degrees east longitude.

The partnership between Hellas Sat and Thales Alenia Space aims to provide cutting-edge communication services with very high data rates from geostationary orbit. This innovative payload aims to connect with the optical ground station of the Greek National Observatory in Athens, the French optical ground station, the European Space Agency's optical ground station, and the LEO Hydron telecommunications satellite of Thales Alenia Space Company.

After the Vertigo H2020 program, Thales Alenia Space Company is currently promoting the development of very high data rate capabilities with the support of France's Balance, CNES, and ESA to cope with long-distance and atmospheric turbulence from the ground to geostationary orbit.

The signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding was held at the Hellas Sat headquarters in Athens, Greece. Representatives from the Prime Minister's Office, the French Embassy in Greece, ESA, the French National Space Research Center, Thales Alenia Space Company, Italy and Switzerland, the Athens National Observatory, and various Greek ministries and local authorities attended the ceremony. Hellas Sat CEO Christodoulos Protopapas said, "We are honored to once again collaborate with Thales Alenia Aerospace Company in the field of optical communication technology, introducing optical connectivity communication services to the European and international markets, effectively implementing new technologies, and ushering in a new era.".

Free space optical laser communication is becoming a space standard, providing greater capacity compared to current satellite communication systems. This technology is expected to completely change space communication infrastructure, similar to the impact of fiber optics on the ground.

Various use cases include universal Internet access, direct data transmission from observation satellites at any time, dedicated links with data centers, and ground fiber redundancy in case of crisis. Introducing optical fibers into space is expected to reduce the demand for a large number of in orbit satellites, contribute to the sustainability of space infrastructure, and minimize sky pollution.

Source: Laser Net