Vanguard Space Technologies, Inc. (Vanguard) today announced that it supplied mission-critical components to Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB) for the Amazonas 4A telecommunications satellite that was recently launched aboard Arianespace's Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

The Amazonas 4A spacecraft, which was designed, manufactured and tested by Orbital and built for Hispasat, incorporates 24 Ku-band active transponders to provide audiovisual services to South America. The satellite is based on Orbital's highly successful GEOStar-2 spacecraft bus and features two 2.5 x 2.7 meter single shell super elliptical deployable reflectors.

Both of the spacecraft's composite reflectors were engineered, produced and tested by Vanguard. They were produced using advanced composite materials and the precision structural components were assembled in Vanguard's San Diego, CA facility. In addition to the design, analysis and fabrication of the reflectors, Vanguard also performed sine vibration, acoustic testing and thermal distortion testing.

"We are very proud to be on Orbital's team for this very important Amazonas 4A mission. The composite reflectors produced by Vanguard showcases our capabilities to produce very tight tolerance, highly accurate and lightweight components in our world-class composite manufacturing facility," said Mr. Frank Belknap, CEO of Vanguard.

"We have a long heritage of producing high-precision reflectors for space-based missions and have been a key supplier to Orbital for many of their successful satellite missions. In addition, Vanguard demonstrated a unique capability to preform thermal distortion testing in a thermal vacuum chamber on this program"