Yamal-401 (Russian: Ямал-401) is a Russian geostationary communications satellite operated by Gazprom Space Systems. It was built by ISS Reshetnev and is based on the Ekspress-2000 satellite bus. It is equipped with 17 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders.^[2] It has a design life of 15 years.

Development history

In February 2009, Gazprom ordered two Yamal-400 type satellites from Thales Alenia Space. The satellites were named Yamal-401 and Yamal-402. Thales Alenia Space was to be responsible for all aspects of the development and building of the satellites. Both satellites were to be based on Spacebus4000C3 satellite buses.^[3]

However, in 2010, Gazprom changed their satellite order so that the Yamal-401 satellite would be developed by ISS Reshetnev and be based on their Ekspress-2000 satellite bus. Thales Alenia Space would deliver the payload for Yamal-401 as originally agreed (also, no changes on the payload side of things). There were no changes with the Yamal-402 satellite, with Thales Alenia developing and building the whole satellite as originally planned.^[4]

Originally, both Yamal-401 and Yamal-402 were to be launched by Ariane 5, but the launches were changed to Proton-M launch vehicles.

Launch

International Launch Services (ILS) was contracted to launch Yamal-401, using a Proton-M / Briz-M launch vehicle. The launch took place from Site 81/24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, at 00:16:00 UTC on 15 December 2014. The satellite was deployed into the planned geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

See also

• Yamal – Communication satellite family operated by Gazprom Space Systems
• Gazprom Space Systems – Satellite communication division of the Russian oil giant Gazprom
• Ekspress (satellite bus) – The satellite bus on which Yamal-401 is based
• ISS Reshetnev – The designer and manufacturer of the Yamal-401 satellite's bus

References

External links

• Gazprom Space Systems Yamal-401
• ISS Reshetnev Yamal-401