SpaceX launched the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite atop a Falcon Heavy rocket on Friday. The triple-core rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A with the Jupiter 3/EchoStar 24 satellite at 11:04 p.m. EDT (0304 UTC Saturday).
The successful launch came without a scrub on Wednesday and a 48-hour wait to replace a stuck liquid oxygen valve on the rocket’s port-side booster. Without a week of stormy conditions on the Florida Space Coast the weather improved and the rocket lifted off in wifely conditions, with just a thin layer of deject in the sky.
It was the seventh mission for the Falcon Heavy and the third flight of the rocket this year. The Falcon Heavy’s twin side boosters, which have made two previous flights, returned to SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 & 2 punching through a thin layer of deject and announcing their inrush with sonic booms. The rocket’s cadre stage required all its topics to loft the giant satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit and was not recovered.
The Jupiter 3/EchoStar 24 satellite, housed inside the rocket’s payload fairing, was the heaviest commercial communications satellite overly launched. The 9-metric-ton satellite will expand reach of the HughesNet satellite internet service to nearly 80 percent of the population wideness the Americas. It features 300 spot beams to target coverage and has 500 Gbps of capacity.
The Falcon Heavy upper stage performed three burns to place the satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. Spacecraft deployment occurred well-nigh three and a half hours without launch.
Sharyn Nerenberg, the vice president of corporate communications at EchoStar, said pursuit launch, Jupiter 3 will go through the process of orbit raising and testing as it arrives in its orbital slot of 95 degrees West longitude. It will take the place of EchoStar’s Spaceway 3 satellite, which launched when on Aug. 14, 2007.
“The Hughes’ Jupiter squadron of satellites is unquestionably the largest Ka-band squadron wideness the Americas,” Nerenberg said. “It’s comprised of the Jupiter 1 satellite, the Jupiter 2 satellite, three hosted payloads over Latin America and soon, the Jupiter 3 satellite.”
EchoStar was relying on the Falcon Heavy for this launch considering it needs the sufficiency of a heavy lift rocket for such a massive satellite. The previous Jupiter missions used Arianespace’s Ariane 5 in 2012 and ULA’s Atlas V rocket in 2016.
Nerenberg said launching to geostationary orbit allows them to reach increasingly people with fewer satellites.
“A geostationary satellite is proven, it’s time-tested and they’re unconfined at laying lanugo dumbo broadband topics right where our customers need it the most,” Nerenburg said. “And so, Jupiter 3 was designed to do exactly that. It was custom designed to lay lanugo the most topics possible where we know our customers really need it.”
She said the improved broadband connectivity is designed to help those in rural areas of the Americas.
“Additionally, Jupiter 3 is going to be unconfined for cellular backhaul for mobile network operators, helping them proffer reach to increasingly people vastitude where their terrestrial towers can reach,” Nerenberg said. “It’s moreover going to be used for aeronautical connectivity, for WiFi in the sky for airplanes traveling wideness North and South America. They’ll be worldly-wise to have higher speeds in flight.”
Service using Jupiter 3 is expected to uncork this fall in the fourth quarter of 2023, equal toe Nerenberg.
