Eutelsat I F-3
Eutelsat I F-3, also known as European Communications Satellite 3 is a communications satellite that was lost after an Ariane 3 launch vehicle failure in 1985. It was the third of five satellites in the European Communications Satellite first-generation satellite programme operated by the European Telecommunications Satellite Organisation.
History
The European Telecommunications Satellite Organization has been servicing the European Economic Community since 1977, being formally established by a multi-lateral agreement in 1985. In 1979, European Space Agency agreed to design, build, and launch five ECS spacecraft to be assumed by Eutelsat after on-orbit testing.The Eutelsat I series of satellites was developed by the European Space Agency as part of the European Communications Satellite programme. Once launched and checked out in a geostationary orbit over Europe, each satellite was handed to Eutelsat for commercial operations. Four Eutelsat I satellites were successfully launched between 1983 and 1988. They served both public and private traffic, including telephone services, fax, data, land mobile service, and television and radio programming. Each had a design life of 7 years and a bandwidth of 72 MHz. ECS-3 was lost in an Ariane 3 launch accident in 1985.