Equipped with a Ka-band variable beam, it provides service anywhere satellite service is required.

KT SAT successfully launched Mugunghwa Satellite 7 from French Guiana in South America at 7:27 a.m. on the 5th (Korea Standard Time, 7:27 p.m. on the 4th local time). With this, KT SAT now possesses a total of four broadcasting and telecommunications satellites, including the existing Mugunghwa Satellites 5 and 6 and the Condosat Koreasat 8.

After entering geostationary orbit around May 16 (Korea Standard Time), Mugunghwa Satellite 7 will undergo performance testing of its onboard transponders for about a month and begin providing full-scale services starting this coming July.



Mugunghwa 7 is a broadcasting and telecommunications satellite that will be located at 116 degrees East longitude and was manufactured by the French satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space. Assembly and testing were successfully completed at factories in Cannes and Toulouse, France, from 2014 to this year, and the satellite was moved to the launch site in French Guiana, South America, in February of this year. The satellite launch was carried out by Ariane Space, a French multinational commercial space launch company.

Mugunghwa Satellite 7 enables satellite services in regions outside the Korean Peninsula based on global coverage. Compared to Mugunghwa Satellites 5 and 6, whose service areas were mainly limited to the Korean Peninsula, Satellite 7 is characterized by expanded coverage to Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Indochina, and India. In particular, Satellite 7 is equipped with a Ka-band variable beam (see glossary) so that it can provide services to any region requiring satellite services in addition to the aforementioned areas.

In addition, Mugunghwa Satellite 7 provides high-quality satellite services with a total of 33 satellite transponders, including 'broadband transponders' with a 54-megahertz (MHz) bandwidth optimized for high-resolution satellite broadcasting and satellite LTE services, and 'broadcasting transponders' prepared for UHD satellite broadcasting services. The design life of Mugunghwa Satellite 7 is 15 years.

KT SAT President Han Won-sik expressed his aspirations, stating, “The launch of Mugunghwa Satellite No. 7 is a long-term project that has been prepared over the past three years, and with the success of this launch, we are now able to provide services to the growth markets of Indonesia and Indochina.” He added, “This launch of Mugunghwa Satellite No. 7 will serve as a starting point for KT SAT, Korea’s No. 1 satellite communications company, to make a full-scale leap forward as a global satellite operator.”