NSS-6 was ordered by New Skies Satellites and built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems (LMCSS) based on their A2100A satellite bus.

The satellite is a Ku-band satellite with Ka-band uplink capabilities and would provide fully interactive access to high-speed Internet and other multimedia communications. Additionally, it will provide direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting services as well as the full complement of traditional enterprise telecommunications services across a large coverage area stretching from the eastern Mediterranean and Southern Africa to Australia, Japan and Korea.

NSS 6 was uniquely configured to satisfy the changing demands of New Skies customers, including Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), broadcasters, DTH services providers and private corporations. The special features of the satellite will enable New Skies’ customers to operate fully interactive, high-speed networks that incorporate small terminals capable of carrying Internet and other bandwidth-intensive services throughout the coverage area of NSS-6. The satellite is also equipped with extra on-board redundancy for critical units, minimizing risk of single-point failure throughout the projected 14-year operational life of the satellite.

Unique features of the satellite include more than 60 high-power 36 MHz -equivalent Ku-band transponders that can be flexibly allocated, in-orbit, to any of six broad beams covering India, China, the Middle East (with Southern African spot coverage), Australia, South-East Asia and North-East Asia. Additionally, up to 15 highly linearized transponders can be assigned to each of the six beams to respond to changing market demand. Each Ku-band beam is formed by an independent high-gain antenna system, offering 51-53dBW in key markets.

NSS-6 was launched on December 17^th, 2002, on an Ariane 44L booster rocket operated by launch operator Arianespace from the Kourou Space Port in French Guiana.