Yahsat set on creating a launch pad for the UAE in space exploration

As the Emirates prepares to enter the space race, we speak to the innovators behind the Emirati satellite-communications company Yahsat, which hopes to help the country's future exploration ambitions.

Emirati satellite operations team. Courtesy Yahsat

One day in the future – and the not too distant future at that – an Ariane 5 ES heavy-lift rocket will rise from its launch site in French Guiana on the east coast of South America in a thunderous burst of smoke and fire.

Burning for exactly 130 seconds, the two solid-fuel boosters will produce 722 tonnes of thrust and a speed of two kilometres per second, before detaching and tumbling back into the Atlantic Ocean. The main engine, powered by liquid hydrogen and oxygen, will continue to power until 605 seconds have passed.

At an altitude of 178 kilometres, explosive bolts will detach at the 24-metre first stage, with the upper-stage engine continuing to power Ariane onward and upwards, until, after approximately 25 minutes and at an altitude of 36,000km, the nose cone will split in two, gently ejecting Al Yah 3, the UAE’s latest commercial satellite, into geo­stationary orbit.

Then, and only then, will the entire team at the Yahsat control centre, on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, let out a collective sigh of relief.

The launch of Al Yah 3, scheduled for the third quarter of 2016, will be the latest step in the UAE’s ambition to become one of the heavy hitters in the commercial satellite industry.

Al Yah 3, from its distant viewpoint off the coast of Brazil; Al Yah 1B, gazing down on Africa; and Al Yah 1A, high above the Arabian Sea, will make a formidable case for Abu Dhabi as a player in space.

Based in a high-security complex next to the road to Sweihan, Al Yah Satellite Communications, or Yahsat, was set up by Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi Government’s investment arm, in 2007.

Within four years, the company had launched Al Yah 1A, a communications satellite with joint commercial and military use, followed, in 2012, by Al Yah 1B, this time using a Russian rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Both satellites serve as platforms for the core businesses at Yahsat, which include extraterrestrial broadcasting channels, satellite broadband through the YahClick division and Yah­Link, which offers commercial internet as an alternative or back-up to undersea cables.

But Yahsat is looking to do much more than grab a share of the lucrative satellite-broadcasting market. As the country looks towards a future in space – the planned 2021 mission to Mars is just one example – companies such as Yahsat will serve as a launch pad, metaphorically speaking.

Al Yah 3, like its two predecessors, it will be built overseas, at the American Orbital Sciences Corporation in Virginia, just outside Washington.

What makes Al Yah 3 different, though, is the role Emiratis will play in its construction. As part of a training programme, 15 Emiratis will be involved in the design and manufacture of the satellite, along with the project manager, Adnan Al Muhairi, who first worked on Al Yah 1A and now lives with his family in the United States.

This level of involvement is crucial if Yahsat is to fulfil its brief, says Masood Mahmood, the company’s chief executive. About six out of 10 employees are Emirati, he says. “But what is important for us is that they are working in departments where it is worthwhile, meaning areas where there is intensive knowledge transfer, whether in the engineering side or the satellite-operations side. These are the important areas on which we are focusing.”

The process of building satellites, he compares to “buying a car from a dealer. After a while you are feeling confident enough that you do your maintenance. For your next car, you say: ‘I will buy the body from somewhere and I will buy the engine from somewhere and do it in my own garage.’”

That model of evolution has been successfully adopted by countries from India and Turkey to China and Japan; all now building their own satellites after first designing using components from outside suppliers but then moving on to manufacturing them.

Yahsat, Mahmood stresses, was not set up as a satellite manufacturer: “Our purpose is to be a satellite operator. We want a global footprint offering smart satellite solutions. But during that process, we want to have a very good and deep understanding of the technology.”

So if, in the future, the UAE does decide to take the next leap forward, the expertise developed at Yahsat will be crucial to its success. “We will have such deep engineering capabilities that if the UAE decides it would like to start with satellite manufacturing, I would have enough engineering brainpower here to be able to contribute to that,” he says.

What comes next, though, is Al Yah 3 joining the fleet next year. Like Yahsat 1A and 1B, it will be a geostationary satellite, meaning that it remains fixed on one position by orbiting at the same speed as the Earth, something that can only be achieved by using a very high altitude (DubaiSat-1, which was built by the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology and a South Korean company, is an Earth-observation satellite that follows a track round the planet at a much lower height of around 500km, with an expected lifespan of five years, compared to 15 for a geo- stationary satellite).

Al Yah 3 is a purely commercial satellite, with no government role, and its importance is connected to its locale at 20 degrees east, rather than the 52.5 and 50.5 west of the other two. With its view of the Atlantic Ocean, it will add 17 African countries to the company’s market reach and, for the first time, an entry into the Americas with Brazil.

The newest satellite promises high-quality data transmission, something much prized by financial institutions – Yahsat’s customers already include several banks – but to much of the world, the company is best known for being a satellite broadcaster providing broadband connectivity through its flagship service YahClick, as well as dozens of TV channels offered by YahLive.

Sami Boustany, the chief executive of YahLive, calculates that his market, which stretches from Europe, across North Africa and the Middle East, into Afghanistan and India, is potentially 1.2 billion people and currently served by 132 free-to-air channels, a number that has nearly tripled in 18 months. For this reason, YahLive views its market not by countries but languages. Its latest market research shows a Farsi-speaking audience of 25 million out of a global population of 140 million Farsi speakers.

But it would be a mistake to think this is all about geographies, says Boustany. “Three-quarters of Afghans speak Farsi, and there is a substantial number in northern Iraq. A lot of cultures are blended, especially along borders.” In addition, there’s a large Farsi-speaking community in Dubai and pockets in Europe, many of them well-educated and also avid TV watchers – an ideal demographic for advertisers.

How much progress Yahsat has made since its creation can be gauged by its presence at this year’s annual convention for the industry in Washington, in which the company was invited to join the “Next Big Four” discussion panel – a reference to both current major players and where things are heading.

Yahsat is currently the eighth biggest satellite company by revenue, but Mahmood says he hopes to become one of the top five within 10 years. In the past three years, the company has seen double-digit growth ahead of the industry average of around 6 per cent.

Next year’s launch is crucial to that ambition. Mahmood joined the company as chief executive with the two current satellites already in space, so this will be his first experience of lift-off.

“Do I get butterflies, perhaps?” he asks of a process that places a highly expensive and sophisticated piece of technology on top of what is essentially a controlled explosion. “Do I get some anxieties? Sometimes. I’m starting to get that.

“I’ll be very honest. You see that the processes are such that to go through a successful mission is a five-year process.

“If all those structures and the people who are placed in those positions, if everything is done well, it will go smoothly. But emotionally how do you deal with that on the day? It is something that I will only be able to find out on the day.”