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News

Successful launch of the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite

Saturday, 23.08.2008

Inmarsat has confirmed the successful launch and acquisition of the third Inmarsat-4 satellite. The satellite was launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 18th August. Inmarsat's tracking station in Fucino, Italy was able to track the satellite while it was still coupled to the Breeze M launch vehicle. Launch provider ILS confirmed successful spacecraft separation on 19th August.

The satellite is the third in the I-4 constellation, concluding a decade of development and a $1.5 billion investment. The current constellation of two Inmarsat-4 satellites delivers mobile broadband services to 85 per cent of the world's landmass, covering 98 per cent of the world's population. The third I-4 will complete the global coverage for Inmarsat's broadband services.

In order to support small terminals over the whole area with the high signal strength required, each satellite can digitally form 228 narrow spot beams. More power and spectrum can be allocated to certain beams, further enhancing mission flexibility to cope with the fluctuations in traffic. An on-board digital signal processor designed and built by Astrium, routes the signals to the different beams, acting like a switchboard in the sky: any signal uplink can be routed to any mobile downlink beam and vice versa. Frequency agility and extensive frequency re-use across the beams permit efficient utilisation of the available channels in the L-band spectrum to provide increased capacity.

The Proton Breeze M is one of the few launch vehicles capable of lifting the I-4 satellite - the size of a London double-decker bus and weighing six tons - into geostationary transfer orbit. The I-4 F3 satellite will now undergo a period of deployment and several weeks of comprehensive tests and manoeuvres before being positioned in geostationary orbit at 98º West.

Inmarsat satellites are currently relied on by the world's shipping, oil exploration, defence and aviation industries to service their communications needs. Inmarsat is also the communications channel of choice for the media when reporting from the world's danger zones and for NGOs, government agencies and the United Nations when coordinating rescue efforts.