Ekran
Ekran (Russian: "Экран", "Screen") was a Soviet-Russian type of geostationary satellite, developed for a national system of Direct-To-Home television. The first satellite of Ekran series was launched in 1976. Each satellite in the Ekran series was designed to provide one TV and 2 radio program channels to cable TV systems throughout the USSR and to individual home receivers in northern Siberia. Ekran's downlink is in the UHF range.
- For the Soviet animation studio see page Studio Ekran
Early Ekran satellites used orbital positions in the range from 48 degrees E to 95 degrees E, but recent Ekrans, including the current Ekran 20, have been stationed at 99 degrees E. These 3-axis stabilized satellites carry a single 24 MHz, 200 W transponder, feeding a 28 dB gain antenna transmitting on right-hand circular polarization to produce equivalent isotropically radiated powers in Siberia in the range 50 to 55 dBW at 714 MHz. The corresponding feeder link uses left-hand circular polarization at 6200 MHz. Therefore, almost every householder could receive the TV signal at home from Ekran's transponder using a simple Yagi-Uda antenna. There were also various kinds of collective or individual satellite receivers, such as Ekran KR-10 and Ekran-KR-01. Latest version of receiver represents a simple individual TV set-top box itself. A modified version of Ekran was called Ekran-M. Ekran satellites have been replaced by improved geostationary craft for DBS, such as Gorizont, Gals, and Express.
On June 23, 1978 the Ekran-2 spacecraft exploded due to a catastrophic discharge of its battery, contributing to the increase in Space Debris on the GEO orbit.
On February 1, 2009 the last satellite from the Ekran series, Ekran-M at 99 degrees East, stopped transmitting.
External links
- Ekran satellite
- Ekran satellite : a short history of development
- Ekran-M
- Communication satellites : Voices from Space - in Russian
- Experiments of amateur Direct-To-Home reception of TV signal from Ekran satellite (included some photo)
- Development of direct satellite broadcasting
- Abstract
- Pacific Telecommunications Review