Complete System for Mobile Communications

The Thuraya mobile communications system serves a region of 2.3 billion people. Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) built the complete turnkey system under a contract signed on Sept. 11, 1997. This included the manufacture and October 2000 launch of Thuraya-1, a high-power Boeing GEM satellite, plus a second spacecraft, ground facilities and user handsets. The system began commercial operations in mid-2001. Sea Launch successfully orbited Thuraya-2 on June 10, 2003, and Thuraya-3 on January 15, 2008.

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

Stowed (left); In Orbit (right)

The Thuraya satellites are the first spacecraft 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.

The Thuraya coverage area encompasses the Middle East, North and Central Africa, Europe, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Thuraya offers GSM-compatible mobile telephone services, transmitting and receiving calls through each satellite's 12.25-meter-aperture reflector. The satellites employ 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.