leased back to Singtel Optus. It was replaced by Optus D2. Optus (and Defence) C1 Satellite Type: Space Systems/Loral (SS/L): LS-1300 Launch Date: 11 June 2003 Location: 156° east Design Life: 15 Years Equipment: 24 Ku band transponders, 4 (+1) Ka band transponders, 4 X band transponders, 6 UHF transponders Partially funded by the Australian Government (Defence Department) - Optus C1's use is shared between Defence and Telecommunications, in particular the supply of Television services to Australia. Mitsubishi Electric was the prime contractor responsible for manufacturing all the Optus C1 communications systems. D-Class Manufacturer: Orbital Sciences Corporation Satellite type: Orbital STAR 2 platform Design life: 15+ years The D1 and D2 satellites replace and expand the services provided by the B1 and B3 satellites respectively, which had both been operating beyond their design lifetimes. The D3 satellite is co-located with C1 to expand capacity. Optus D1 Location: 160° east Launch Date: 13 October 2006 Equipment: 24 Ku band transponders Launch mass: 2350 kg D1 was successfully launched by an Ariane 5 ECA on 13 October 2006 at 20:56 UTC. It was the first satellite to sign contract for Launch Services Alliance mission assurance. Customers on D1 include the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), the Seven Network, the Nine Network, Sky Television New Zealand and New Zealand's Kordia (formerly known as BCL). D1 also supports VSAT users. Kordia is leasing a full transponder for sublease to TVNZ (TVNZ 1 & TVNZ 2) and Discovery New Zealand (Three & Bravo) for the Freeview service. The Kordia transponder will be on 12.4697 GHz. Incorrect configuration of New Zealand spot beam During in-orbit testing of the satellite, it was discovered that the New Zealand spot beam had been configured with horizontal polarisation instead of the expected vertical polarisation - as had been used on its predecessor Optus B1. As many existing receivers did not have the ability to receive horizontally aligned signals, Sky Television was unable to transfer services from Optus B1 to this beam as expected. Sky was instead assigned capacity on the more general Australia/NZ beam. Due to restrictions on broadcast rights (in terms of both broadcast licensing and copyright), the unencrypted Freeview service could not make a similar allocation switch and was set up as a horizontally-aligned service on the New Zealand spot beam. On 2007-07-31, Sky successfully performed an over the air software upgrade to all of