Türksat

Türksat A.Ş. (Türksat Uydu Haberleşme Kablo TV ve İşletme A.Ş.), headquartered in Ankara and founded in 1990 as a government enterprise, is Turkey's national satellite operator providing telecommunications, broadcasting, and internet services to Turkey, the surrounding region, and extending to Central Asia and parts of Africa through a fleet of geostationary satellites positioned at orbital slots that optimize coverage for Turkish-language content distribution and government communications infrastructure.

Türksat operates satellites at multiple GEO orbital positions: Türksat 1C (42°E), Türksat 2A (42°E), Türksat 3A (42°E), Türksat 4A (42°E), and Türksat 4B (50°E) — with the 42°E position being the primary slot for Turkish broadcasting, providing beam coverage over Turkey, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Türksat 5A (31°E, launched January 2021) and Türksat 5B (42°E, launched December 2021) are the company's newest high-throughput satellites built by Airbus Defence & Space, delivering significantly increased Ku-band and Ka-band capacity for broadband internet services and HD/4K television broadcasting.

Türksat's primary business lines include: DTH satellite television broadcasting (as the infrastructure backbone for Turkey's national broadcasters TRT, Digitürk, and D-Smart pay-TV platforms), terrestrial internet service provider (Türksat ISP, providing ADSL and fiber broadband to Turkish consumers as a fixed-line ISP as well as satellite broadband), VSAT corporate network services, and government/military secure communications. Türksat is fully owned by Turkey's national holding company, Varlık Fonu (Turkey Wealth Fund), reflecting its status as sovereign infrastructure.

Türksat plays a central role in Turkey's space strategy: the company has been the operational anchor for Turkey's satellite manufacturing technology transfer programs (TÜRKSAT 5A/5B brought Turkish engineers to Airbus in Toulouse), and the planned TÜRKSAT 6A — to be Turkey's first domestically manufactured GEO satellite, built by TAI (Turkish Aerospace Industries) — will validate Turkey's satellite manufacturing industrial base.