Built by Airbus Defence and Space, the MEASAT-3d is based on the company’s Eurostar E3000 satellite platform and has been designed to be operational for up to 18 years. When launched from French Guiana next month through mission VA257 which utilizes an Ariane 5 rocket, the new satellite will be heading to the 91.5°E orbital slot to co-locate alongside its older siblings, the MEASAT-3a and MEASAT-3b. The Ariane 5 heavy launcher was also previously used to deploy the James Webb Space Telescope. [Image: ESA – S. Corvaja/Flickr.]Through its Ka-band High Throughput Satellite (HTS) payload which will be used exclusively for Malaysia, the MEASAT-3d is able to deliver a broadband capacity of 30Gbps. As a comparison, the current broadband capacity of MEASAT’s existing satellite fleet is 3Gbps. With the tenfold increase in broadband capacity, MEASAT said that this allows the company to boost the throughput of its CONNECTme broadband service from 30Mbps to 100Mbps. MEASAT is currently working to further expand CONNECTme’s footprint from the existing 3,000 sites to 10,000 sites within the next three years which is expected to cover more than two million Malaysians in remote areas. MEASAT-3d coverage map. [Image: MEASAT – pdf]At the same time, the C and Ku-Band transponders on the RM1.2 billion satellite will help ensure that MEASAT is able to continue catering to broadcasters and satellite TV viewers in more than 20 million households all over Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. As noted on the map shown above, the MEASAT-3d coverage also goes as far as Australia, Japan, China, the Middle East, and Eastern Africa.
