Eurostar (satellite bus)

Eurostar is a family of telecommunications satellite buses made by Airbus Defence and Space, and by its predecessors Astrium, British Aerospace and Matra Marconi Space, for spacecraft that provide services from geosynchronous orbit. It was designed in the mid 1980s to Inmarsat specifications as a modular platform with a digital avionics system, and it has grown through the E1000, E2000, E2000+ and E3000 generations while keeping essentially the same configuration, with the E3000e adding all-electric orbit raising and the Eurostar Neo extending it further. More than 70 Eurostar satellites had been ordered by the time the article was written, and more than 55 had been launched since October 1990. Structures are modular, with a separate service and propulsion module and a communications module.