Thales Alenia Space to provide state-of-the-art Digital Processor for Korea’s GEO-KOMPSAT-3 communications satellite

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo
(33%), announced today that it has signed a contract with the South Korean aerospace manufacturer and
defense company, LIG Nex1 Co., Ltd., to provide a state-of-the-art Digital Processor for the GEO-KOMPSAT-
3 communications satellite.

Scheduled for launch in 2027, GEO-KOMPSAT-3 (Geostationary Earth Orbit Korea Multipurpose Satellite 3)
is a multi-band communications satellite that will provide broadband satellite communication services in the
Korean Peninsula and surrounding maritime areas, ensuring service continuity of COMS-1 satellite, currently
in operations in-orbit. In particular, it will support the Korea Coast Guard satellite communications for national
maritime rescue and protection; secure stable information on monitoring water disasters in mountains, rivers
and dams to the Ministry of Environment; and provide the Ministry of Science and ICT with a satellite
communication system for emergency response to disaster situations, as well as with an advanced testbed
for domestic satellite communication research activities.

In addition, GEO-KOMPSAT-3 will also feature a Data Collection System (DCS) mission for gathering and
retransmitting environmental and water related data; and a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS)
mission for satellite navigation augmentation service, particularly to support safe aircraft landing approach
operations with vertical guidance.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea is responsible for the satellite
payloads, while the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is responsible for the satellite platform.

State-of-the-art Digital Processor

The state-of-the-art, fully reprogrammable Digital Processor is a core element of the Ka-band Flexible
Broadband Communication System payload, combining both transparent and regenerative signal processing
by means of Digital Channelizer Units (DCU) and On-Board Processing Units (OBPU) sections, respectively.
DCU implement digital filtering and switching functions with reconfigurable mapping of input and output ports,
channels and subchannels between different satellite beams; while OBPU perform demodulation, decoding,
IP-based onboard switching, encoding and modulation of the communication signals, thus maximizing the
efficient use of the satellite capacity.

Thales Alenia Space in Spain is responsible for the Digital Processor specification, design, development,
assembly, integration and test (AIT) and delivery. Thales Alenia Space will also support LIG Nex1 and ETRI
at system engineering and AIT level, in a co-engineering cooperation approach to ensure smooth integration
of the Digital Processor with the nationally developed Ground Support Equipment and Ground Segment.

The GEO-KOMPSAT-3 Digital Processor relies on Thales Alenia Space’s PRODIGE product suite of flight-
proven flexible RF digital processors for compact, digitally processed, satellite communication payloads. This
software-defined, reconfigurable product family is based on a scalable, modular design readily adaptable to
different customer needs and frequency bands.

Thales Alenia Space’s participation in GEO-KOMPSAT-3 is the latest milestone in its long-standing
collaboration with South Korea on a number of space programs, including multipurpose geostationary
missions (COMS-1, GEO-KOMPSAT 2A and 2B), the Koreasat satellite telecommunications family (Koreasat
5, 5A, 6 and 7), Earth observation missions (KOMPSAT 3A, 5, 6 and 7 and CAS-500 family), Korea’s lunar
exploration program (KPLO) and Korea’s satellite navigation augmentation system (KASS).