TELSTAR 12V

Telstar 12V, catalogued by NORAD under identifier 41036 and designated internationally as 2015-068A, is a geostationary communications satellite operated under the Telstar series managed by Telesat, the Canadian satellite communications company. Launched on November 23, 2015, the spacecraft occupies a stable position high above the equator and remains in service, continuing to contribute to Telesat's commercial communications network. It represents a notable point in the history of commercial spaceflight, having been the first dedicated commercial payload to ride the Japanese H-IIA launch vehicle into orbit.

Mission and Purpose

Telstar 12V — the "V" standing for Vantage — belongs to Telesat's long-running Telstar family of commercial communications satellites. Telesat, headquartered in Canada, has operated geostationary communications spacecraft for decades, providing connectivity services to broadcasters, internet service providers, governments, and enterprise customers across multiple continents. The Telstar series has historically served transatlantic and wide-area coverage markets, and the 12V designation places this satellite as a successor within that lineage.

The specific mission parameters — including the precise communications payload configuration, frequency bands, transponder count, and service regions — are not recorded in the public orbital catalog maintained for this object, and detailed mission specifications have not been disclosed in a form that can be independently verified through catalog sources. What is well established is that the satellite falls within the class of large geostationary communications payloads that provide broadcast, broadband, and data relay services, consistent with Telesat's broader commercial portfolio. The "Vantage" branding in its full name suggests marketing positioning around expanded coverage or enhanced capability compared to prior satellites in the series, though specific technical claims of this nature are not independently confirmed through catalog data.

As a Telesat asset, the satellite serves the company's mandate to provide reliable, commercially competitive satellite capacity, a mission that places it squarely in the competitive geostationary communications market alongside platforms operated by Intelsat, SES, and other major operators. Canada has a historically significant stake in satellite communications, having launched the world's first domestic communications satellite, Anik A1, in 1972, and Telesat's continued investment in geostationary infrastructure reflects that legacy.

Orbit and Tracking

Telstar 12V occupies a geostationary orbit, one of the most commercially valuable and precisely defined orbital regimes in use today. The orbital data on record shows an apogee of 35,805 kilometers and a perigee of 35,785 kilometers, figures that reflect the extremely low eccentricity characteristic of a well-maintained geostationary slot. The difference of just 20 kilometers between the highest and lowest points of its orbit indicates a nearly circular path, as expected for an operational geostationary satellite that has completed its drift to an assigned orbital slot and been circularized.

The inclination is recorded at 0.0 degrees, confirming that the satellite's orbital plane is aligned with Earth's equatorial plane. This zero-inclination condition is the defining geometric property of a true geostationary orbit: from the perspective of a fixed point on Earth's surface, the satellite appears stationary in the sky, enabling dish antennas to point at a fixed position without any need for active tracking. This characteristic makes geostationary satellites especially valuable for broadcast and broadband applications where continuous, uninterrupted service to a wide geographic footprint is required.

The orbital period is 1,436.2 minutes — approximately 23 hours and 56 minutes — which closely matches Earth's sidereal rotation period. This synchronization is precisely what produces the geostationary effect: the satellite completes one orbit around Earth in the same time it takes Earth to rotate once relative to the fixed stars, keeping the satellite locked above a single point on the equator. The slight difference between this figure and a full 24-hour day reflects the distinction between a solar day and a sidereal day, an astronomical subtlety that orbital engineers account for when placing satellites into geostationary slots.

For tracking purposes, Telstar 12V is assigned NORAD catalog number 41036, which allows it to be unambiguously identified within the global space surveillance catalog maintained by United States Space Command and shared with civilian tracking services. Its COSPAR international designator, 2015-068A, encodes the year of its launch (2015), the sequential launch number within that year (068), and its status as the primary payload of that launch (A). These identifiers allow observers, operators, and researchers to correlate orbital element sets with the physical object and monitor its position over time.

Because geostationary satellites sit at roughly 35,800 kilometers altitude — nearly three times the diameter of Earth above the surface — they move extremely slowly relative to the background stars as seen from the ground, and they are generally not targets for casual visual observation. Dedicated orbital tracking platforms can provide real-time positional data for Telstar 12V based on current two-line element sets derived from radar observations.

Design and Operator

Telstar 12V was manufactured for Telesat, the Canadian satellite communications company that has operated geostationary spacecraft since the early 1970s. Telesat is majority-owned by Canadian interests and operates one of the larger geostationary fleet portfolios among commercial satellite operators globally. The manufacturer of the Telstar 12V spacecraft is not recorded in the public catalog data available for this object, and accordingly no specific bus or platform designation can be stated with authority here.

Mass data for the satellite are similarly not available in the public catalog record. Large geostationary communications satellites in this class typically launch at several thousand kilograms including propellant, but any specific figure for Telstar 12V would be speculative and is therefore omitted here. The satellite carries the owner country designation of Canada, consistent with Telesat's nationality and Canadian regulatory jurisdiction over the spacecraft.

Telesat holds Canadian radiocommunication licenses and coordinates its orbital slots through the International Telecommunication Union, as is standard practice for geostationary operators. The satellite's Canadian national identity is reinforced by its listing under Canadian ownership in international registries, even though its services extend well beyond Canada's geographic borders.

Launch and Historical Significance

The launch of Telstar 12V on November 23, 2015 was a historically meaningful event in commercial spaceflight, though for reasons somewhat independent of the satellite's own communications mission. The spacecraft served as the first dedicated commercial payload to be launched by Japan's H-IIA rocket, a medium-to-heavy lift vehicle developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and operated under the auspices of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's commercial launch services framework. Prior to this mission, the H-IIA had launched Japanese government and institutional payloads, but Telstar 12V represented its entry into the competitive international commercial launch market.

This milestone was significant for the global launch industry because it marked Japan's credible entry as a provider of launch services to commercial satellite operators — a market long dominated by Arianespace's Ariane 5, and increasingly contested by American and other international providers. The selection of the H-IIA by a major commercial operator like Telesat was a signal of confidence in the vehicle's reliability and competitiveness. For Japan's space industry, the mission opened the door to a broader commercial customer base that could help sustain launch cadence and fund continued development of Japanese launch vehicle technology.

For Telesat, the launch was consistent with the company's practice of diversifying across launch providers to manage risk and maintain competitive procurement options. Geostationary satellites of this scale require highly reliable launch vehicles, as any failure results in the total loss of a multi-hundred-million-dollar asset, making the choice of launch provider a carefully considered decision.

Current Status

As of the most recent catalog data, Telstar 12V remains in orbit and has not undergone atmospheric reentry or been officially retired from the catalog. The satellite was launched into geostationary orbit in late 2015, meaning it has been in service for approximately a decade. Geostationary communications satellites of this generation are typically designed for operational lifetimes in the range of fifteen years or more, sustained by onboard propulsion systems that perform station-keeping maneuvers to counteract natural perturbations from the gravitational influences of the Moon and Sun, as well as solar radiation pressure.

The mission status and current operational condition of the satellite — whether it remains in active commercial service, has been placed in an inclined orbit to conserve fuel in a retirement phase, or is in any other operational configuration — are not specified in the publicly available catalog data. Telesat has not publicly disclosed any retirement or decommissioning information for this object in the records available to this catalog. Tracking data continues to show the satellite maintaining a geostationary position consistent with ongoing operational use, with its near-circular equatorial orbit remaining stable at the altitudes described above.

As the commercial satellite industry has evolved since 2015, with growing interest in low Earth orbit constellations and high-throughput satellite technology, Telstar 12V represents a generation of geostationary platforms that established important commercial and launch industry precedents even as the broader market continues to change around them.