On Wednesday, SES Astra, the European satellite unit for SES, said its new Astra 1M satellite was successfully deployed at its final orbital position at 19.2 degrees East and is ready for commercial operations.

The satellite, which launched from Kazakhstan in November, will deliver direct-to-home and HDTV services throughout continental Europe. SES said the platform will offer important replacement capacity and support its HDTV platform serving the continent.

While that was good news for the satellite services provider, SES recently reported that its Astra 5A satellite, operating at 31.5 degrees East, experienced a technical anomaly leading to the end of the spacecraft's mission.

SES Astra said it has informed impacted customers and switched a substantial part of the affected traffic to another Astra satellite at 23.5 degrees East. German cable operators getting service from the satellite were among the transferred customers, the company said.

The satellite, originally known as Sirius 2, was launched in November 1997.

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