From left to right: UKSA CEO Graham Turnock, Airbus EVP Space Systems Nicolas Chamussy, Sam Gyimah, UK Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, and Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer, attend the signing for the first Eurostar Neo mission on 19 November 2018, at the UK government's Department Of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in London.
Eurostar Neo’s first home in space will be at 13°E on the geostationary arc, where two of its platforms will host identical Eutelsat HOTBIRD payloads, and help them broadcast more than a thousand television channels into homes across Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East.
The new Eurostar Neo product line is developed by Airbus in the frame of ESA's Neosat programme under the Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) programme, in cooperation with space agencies from ESA Member States, particularly CNES and the UK Space Agency.