TÜRKSAT 6A is Turkey's first indigenous communication satellite project that promotes the development of necessary technologies and production with domestic capabilities. The Project have been funded by TÜBİTAK and Ministry of Transportation, Maritime, and Communication. TÜRKSAT A.Ş. is the end-user and will be the owner of the satellite after successful completion of the commissioning phase. In the frame of the Project, TÜBİTAK UZAY, as the main contractor, partnered with TAI, ASELSAN and CTECH to join their expertice and capability in space technologies accumulated over years such as in RASAT and GÖKTÜRK-2 and ongoing IMECE projects.
TURKSAT 6A Project has been started on 15th of December 2014. Besides the “Flight Model” which will perform the mission in space, auxiliary system level models for the ground tests and development purposes will also be produced in the scope of the project.
TÜRKSAT 6A, which has total mass of more than 4 tonnes including propellant, will be placed into orbit of 42⁰E. There are 16 active and 4 redundant Ku-Band transponders which cover Europe, Northern coast of Africa, Midde East, India and Indonesia, in addition to Turkey. In the scope of the project, many indigeneous equipment will gain a space heritage and they will constitute a solid baseline for Turkey’s future space projects.
General specifications are given in Table 1.
| Orbit | 42°E |  |
| Payload | 20 Ku-Band Transponders | |
| Service Life | > 15 years | |
| Dry Mass | ~1700 kg | |
| Total Mass | ~4200 | |
| Power Generation | ~8 kW (EOL) |