NEW YORK: Inmarsat has successfully launched the second of its next-generation satellites which provide superfast broadband connections.
The company said that, over the coming weeks, it will command the satellite to perform a series of manoeuvres to raise it to a geo-synchronous elliptical orbit. By the end of February the satellite will have completed the deployment of its solar arrays and reflectors, and after this it will enter a electrical orbit-raising phase, which Inmarsat says will take the satellite to its final geostationary orbit.
It expects this to be completed by the end of March, with the satellite ready for payload testing at the beginning of April.
Inmarsat said that it expects to launch its third satellite in the series in the coming months, and is on schedule to achieve full global coverage early in the second half of 2015.
“The successful launch of our second Inmarsat-5 satellite by Proton is a significant step forward on our journey to deliver the world’s first globally available, high speed mobile broadband service,” said Chief Executive Officer Rupert Pearce in a statement.
The satellite was launched on a International Launch Services rocket from Kazakhstan.
