The UK\u2019s Inmarsat-4 F2 global communications satellite is set for a sea-based launch on a Zenit-3SL rocket on Tuesday at 14:07 UK time. <\/p>\n
The launch has been delayed over problems with an automated halt in the launch countdown system, prior to fuelling late last week.\n<\/p>\n
The F2 is the second in a series of three satellites in the Inmarsat-4 series, with the first already in orbit \u2013 servicing Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia \u2013 following its launch from Cape Canaveral in March on a an Atlas 5. The third will remain on the ground as a spare, ready for launch should one of its two sisters suffer a major problem. <\/font><\/p>\n The company responsible for the lift off is Sea Launch, a Californian company that has already successfully completed three missions in 2005. On February 28, they launched the XM-3 satellite, for XM Satellite Radio. April 26 saw DIRECTV\u2019s Spaceway satellite \u2013 the heaviest commercial satellite of that date \u2013 launch, soon followed by the Intelsat Americas-8 satellite on the 23rd of June.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n Sea Launch provide a capability to launch from near Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean, close to the equator, using an oil rig-type platform for the rocket, while launch control staff are based on a nearby customised ship.<\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u2018It will be quite spectacular,\u2019 said Inmarsat chief operating officer Michael Butler to the BBC. \u2018In the Pacific Ocean, it will be night time. It will be a very impressive fireworks display but hopefully without the explosions.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n The sea launch was originally scheduled for Saturday but was delayed 48 hours to allow controllers to investigate technical issues.<\/font><\/p>\n The huge six-ton payload was primarily built at EADS Astrium facilities in Stevenage and Portsmouth \u2013 providing super-fast broadband communication for its catchment area for about 15 years.<\/font><\/p>\n Aerospace & Defense (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UK\u2019s Inmarsat-4 F2 global communications satellite is set for a sea-based launch on a Zenit-3SL rocket on Tuesday at 14:07 UK time. The launch has been delayed over problems with an automated halt in the launch countdown system, prior to fuelling late last week. The F2 is the second in a series of three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}