Anik (satellite)
series of Canadian geostationary communications satellites
The Anik satellites are a series of geostationary communications satellites launched for Telesat Canada for television, voice and data in Canada and other parts of the world, from 1972 through 2013. Some of the later satellites in the series remain operational in orbit, while others have been retired to a graveyard orbit. The naming of the satellite was determined by a national contest, and was won by Julie-Frances Czapla of Saint-Léonard, Québec. In Inuktitut, Anik means "brother".
Satellites
Anik A
The Anik A satellites were the world's first national domestic satellites. (Prior to Anik A1's launch, all geosynchronous communications satellites were transcontinental, i.e. Intelsat I and others.) The Anik A fleet of three satellites gave CBC the ability to reach the Canadian North for the first time. Each of the satellites was equipped with 12 C-band transponders that were capable of one broadcast-quality television signal, or 960 telephone calls., and thus had the capacity for a total of 12 colour television channels or 11,520 telephone calls. Three channels were allocated for CBC, two to TCTS and CNCP Telecommunications, two to Bell Canada, one for Canadian Overseas Telecommunications. Two channels were to put on reserve and the remaining two were unallocated (future use).
The public source identifies “Anik (satellite)” as series of Canadian geostationary communications satellites. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Anik, satellite and series.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q546687. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Anik (satellite)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.