Complete System for Mobile Communications

An estimated 2.3 billion people live in the region served by the Thuraya mobile communications system, which began commercial operations in 2001. Boeing Satellite Development Center built the complete turnkey system under a contract singed on Sept. 11, 1997. This included the manufacture and launch of Thuraya-1, a high-power Boeing GEM satellite, as well as insurance, ground facilities and user handsets. A second spacecraft was ordered as a ground spare, with an option for a third satellite. The coverage area encompasses the Middle East, North and Central Africa, Europe, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Thuraya-1 was successfully launched on Oct. 20, 2000.

The satellites are built at Boeing Satellite Development Center's Integration and Test Complex near Los Angeles International Airport. Hughes Network Systems (HNS) is providing the ground facilities. HNS and Ascom of Switzerland are providing the 235,000 handsets.

Stowed (left); In Orbit (right)

Thuraya-1 is the first satellite in the Boeing GEM series. This product line expands Boeing's offerings beyond satellite manufacturing, to integrate a high-power geosynchronous satellite (derived from the Boeing 702 body-stabilized design) with a ground segment and user handsets, to provide a range of cellular-like voice and data services over a large geographic region. The Thuraya ground segment includes terrestrial gateways plus a collocated network operations center and satellite control facility in the UAE.

Thuraya offers GSM-compatible mobile telephone services, transmitting and receiving calls through a single 12.25-meter-aperture reflector. The satellite employs state-of-the-art on-board digital signal processing to create more than 200 spot beams that can be redirected on-orbit, allowing the Thuraya system to adapt to business demands in real time. Calls are routed directly from one handheld unit to another, or to a terrestrial network. The system has the capacity for 13,750 simultaneous voice circuits.