{"id":47610,"date":"2026-02-07T00:20:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/viasat-expects-f2-satellite-to-enter-service-in-may-posts-3-revenue-growth-in-q3\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T00:20:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:20:53","slug":"viasat-expects-f2-satellite-to-enter-service-in-may-posts-3-revenue-growth-in-q3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/viasat-expects-f2-satellite-to-enter-service-in-may-posts-3-revenue-growth-in-q3\/","title":{"rendered":"Viasat Expects F2 Satellite to Enter Service in May, Posts 3% Revenue Growth in Q3"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><b>Viasat <\/b>reported modest 3% year-over-year revenue increase in the company\u2019s third quarter, driven by its defense segment. The operator expects the second ViaSat-3 satellite to enter service by May \u2014 CEO Mark Dankberg told investors on Thursday the satellite is about 34 days away from being on station.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The F2 satellite launched in November and is set to add add 1 terabit per second of capacity to Viasat\u2019s network.<\/p>\n<p>The third and final ViaSat-3 satellite, VS-3 F3 is going through final integration. Dankberg said it\u2019s expected to launch on a <strong>SpaceX<\/strong> Falcon Heavy shortly after F2 is fully deployed, and expected to enter into service by late summer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat reported third quarter results for its fiscal year 2026 on Feb. 5. The operator\u2019s Defense and Advanced Technologies (DAT) segment grew 9% year-over-year, while Communication Services grew 1%. Total revenue was $1.16 billion.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat reported net income of $25 million for the quarter, compared to a net loss of $158 million for the same time last year. This is largely due to a lump sum payment from Ligdao. Under a deal reached last year, AST SpaceMobile is making payments to Ligado, which are then paid to Viasat for rights to Inmarsat mid-band spectrum.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat is generating free cash flow and generated $24 million in free cash flow during the quarter, not including $420 million from the Ligado payment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The operator used a portion of the Ligado payment to pay down an Inmarsat term loan. The company\u2019s net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio has improved from 3.7x last year to 3.25x.<\/p>\n<p>Communication Services revenue was $825 million in the third quarter, led by around $300 million of aviation revenue.&nbsp;Aviation revenue grew 15%, led by a 9% increase in commercial aircraft in service, combined with higher average revenue per aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>CFO Garrett Chase told investors that Viasat expects approximately 1,100 additional commercial aircraft will be put into service under existing customer agreements.<\/p>\n<p>Fixed services and other revenue was down 20% as Viasat reports U.S. fixed broadband subscribers continue to decline. Viasat ended the quarter with 143,000 subscribers and $112 in average revenue per user.<\/p>\n<p>Defense and Advanced Technologies revenue was $332 million during the quarter. Revenue was driven by backlog and growth in infosec and cyber defense and tactical networking.<\/p>\n<p>Viasat noted that awards for DAT during the quarter of $300 million were down 8% due to impact from the government shutdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Viasat reported modest 3% year-over-year revenue increase in the company\u2019s third quarter, driven by its defense segment. The operator expects the second ViaSat-3 satellite to enter service by May \u2014 CEO Mark Dankberg told investors on Thursday the satellite is about 34 days away from being on station.&nbsp; The F2 satellite launched in November and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47613,"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-47610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47610"}],"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=47610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}