History
The satellite came into its position on 7 January 1989. FilmNet became the first channel on the satellite when it launched on transponder 11 on 1 February 1989. Other channels such as Sky Channel, Eurosport, Sky News and Sky Movies from Sky Television, as well as the Scandinavian TV3 (Sweden) and MTV Europe all launched in February 1989. The Children's Channel/Lifestyle and Screensport followed in March 1989. The Scandinavian pay channel TV1000 launched in August 1989.
Sky Television had originally planned to launch The Disney Channel and Sky Arts on the Astra satellite in 1989,[3] but these plans failed to materialize. The transponders intended for these channels, were used for Eurosport and the Dutch RTL Veronique (which would later become RTL4), respectively. The first German language programmes, RTL plus, Sat.1 and Pro 7 all launched on 8 December 1989. With the launch of 3sat in March 1990 and Teleclub in June 1990 all transponders were occupied.
Lifestyle was replaced by VOX in January 1993. Soon thereafter, Screensport merged with Eurosport and its transponder was replaced by RTL2. RTL 4 moved to Astra 1D in 1995 and was replaced by Super RTL. Teleclub was replaced by Kabel 1 during the same year. TV3 and TV1000 left Astra in 1996 and their transponders were taken over by BSkyB who used them for Fox Kids/Sky Two and Granada Plus/Granada Men & Motors. Filmnet also left in 1996, to be replaced by Bloomberg Germany in 1997. BSkyB ended their analogue service in 2001, which meant that its services closed down. By the end of 2001, the satellite was moved from 19.2° East to serve few years at 5.2° East.
On 19.2° East, the satellite was replaced by Astra 1F. Many channels, including RTL II, RTL, Eurosport, VOX, Sat.1, Kabel Eins, Super RTL and ProSieben were still broadcasting in analogue on the same frequencies in 2009.[4]
In December 2004, Astra 1A was moved into a "graveyard orbit" after some time at 5.2° East providing data services.
