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    Turksat - Turkish Satellite Communications SystemOn December 21 1990, the French company Aerospatiale, maker of the space launch vehicle Ariane, won a bid worth $315 million to provide a satellite communications system for Turkey. Under the agreement signed with the Turkish PTT (now Turk Telekom), Aerospatiale would manufacture and launch the Turkish communication satellites named Turksat, which would be controled, monitored and maneuvered from a Satellite Operations and Orbit Control Center located in Gölbasi, Ankara.

    Ariane take-offAfter an unsuccessful attempt (Turksat 1A, January 24, 1994), Aerospatiale launched two communication satellites Turksat 1B and Turksat 1C from French Guinea in 1994 (August 10) and 1996 (July 9), respectively. TURKSAT 1B (31.0° East) contains 16 transponders and is mainly used for IBS telephony and VSAT data communication services, providing telecommunication services to banks, hotel chains, press, educational organizations, universities and national defense authorities, etc. Turksat 1C (42.0° East) is also equipped with 16 Ku-band transponders and provides TV and radio program transmissions from UK to China. The footprint of the satellites cover two areas simultaneously. These two areas intersect over Turkey, enabling direct reception of transmissions both in Europe and Central Asia. Both of the satellites are running at full capacity and the third Turkish satellite, Turksat 2A, is in the process of being build and it has been reported that it will be operational either in late 1999 or early 2000.



    Would you be interested in how the earth looks like from Turksat satellites? If you'd like to see the real-time space image from either Turksat 1B or 1C, click on the satellite name below and enjoy the view:

    Pick a satellite:






    Track Turksat 1B, 1C, and hundreds of other spacecrafts with this real-time, java based satellite tracker web application. As you click on the link (or the image) below, the java applet, developed by the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), should appear in its own window and begin loading a database of over 500 satellites.

    Assuming your system supports this JAVA applet (preferably a system faster than 166 MHz with Java Just-In-Time compiling enabled browser), you will see a plot in 3-dimensions showing the position of these satellites. Be sure to try the "Satellite" pull-down menu to choose which satellite you wish to view (Turksat 1B and 1C are in the database). You may also zoom-in and zoom-out from the "View" pull-down menu and adjust the simulation speed between real-time and x1000 faster from the "Options" menu.

    3D Satellite Tracker
    Application Shortcuts:
    Shift+Click: Zoom In
    Ctrl+Click: Zoom Out
    Click on sat: Show trace
    Mouse Drag: Rotate in 3D

    Click here to launch
    the 3D Satellite Tracker






    Learn who beams from Turksat 1B and 1C. As you click on a satellite name on the pull-down menu located below, a new window will pop up, which contains transmission types, channels, frequencies, polarization, beam mode, etc. of the TV and radio networks broadcasting from Turksat.


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