Another bird has gone up in the sky with its eye on the Indian market. Americom Asia-Pacific (AAP)'s GE-1A satellite was launched successfully yesterday by ILS from from the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, singalling the operational beginning of Americom Asia-Pacific, the joint venture formed by GE Americom and Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications.

Andreas Georghiou, AAP's President who also serves as GE Americom's Senior Vice President of Global Satellite Services, said "With next month's operation of GE-1A, we look forward to realizing our plan of bringing high-quality Ku-band satellite service to this important region."

GE-1A, a powerful K[J Purvis2]popou-band satellite, is to be be located at 108.2 degrees east longitude and is expected to provide services via three beams to greater China, south Asia including India, and northeast Asia and the Philippines. The spacecraft has 28 active 36 MHz Ku-band transponders with 120-watt TWTAs. The GE-1A satellite is an A2100AX spacecraft, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, for a minimum useful life of 15 years.

The satellite is expected to be fully operational by November 15, 2000, and will deliver Internet applications, VSAT, data and telecommunications services, cable and broadcast programming.

AAP was formed in 1998, to provide high-powered capacity and state-of-the-art services to ISP's and their customers, programmers, telcos and carriers throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It has established its headquarters in Singapore with additional sales and technical support teams in Beijing and New Delhi.