Aug. 9, 2010

Honeywell will provide the stability equipment for Argentina’s first geostationary telecom satellite in a contract worth $2.4 million.

Honeywell’s Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWA) and Miniature Inertial Measurement Units (MIMU) are integral parts of the ARSAT-1 satellite’s Attitude Control System.

“Honeywell is the only U.S. company selected in the competition for Argentina’s first GEO satellite program” said Dave Douglass, Honeywell vice president of Space, Missiles and Munitions.  “Honeywell’s RWAs provide fine attitude control required by satellite communication networks.”

The ARSAT-1 will be developed by the Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales S.A., Argentina’s first geostationary satellite, scheduled to launch in 2012.  The satellite will provide data, telephone and television transmission services for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia.

Honeywell’s RWA and momentum wheel assemblies (MWA) are reliable, lightweight solutions to a variety of momentum control needs, providing stability and attitude-control for small to very large, heavy spacecraft.  RWAs and MWAs from Honeywell have accumulated more than 65 million hours of 100 percent successful on-orbit operation – the equivalent to more than 7,400 years of accumulated time on orbit – and have never caused a mission to end prematurely.

ARSAT is a company incorporated by the Argentine Government to develop geostationary orbital slots assigned to the Argentine Republic by means of telecommunications satellites developed and built in Argentina, and to operate them and provide all kind of satellite services, voice, data, audio and video, to customers across the Americas. Currently holding Argentine orbital slots 81 degrees West and 72 degrees West, ARSAT is providing service to customers using satellite capacity obtained through strategic and commercial agreements with global operators.