Jointly owned by Singapore Telecom (SingTel) and Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan, the ST 1 satellite system provides telecommunications and direct-to-home broadcast services to most of Asia, up to 16 high-power Ku-band transponders over India, south-east Asia and Taiwan, and 14 C-band transponders for coverage from western India and Pakistan to Borneo, the Philippines and south-eastern China. The ST 1 satellite was launched in August 1998. Two ground control stations are located in Seletar (Singapore) and Taipei (Taiwan).

The Ariane 4 was an expendable space launch system, developed by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the final flight on 15 February 2003, it attained 113 successful launches out of 116 total launches.

Arianespace SA is a multinational company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It undertakes the production, operation, and marketing of the Ariane programme. Their vehicles launch exclusively from French Guiana in South America.