| UK. Second Inmarsat-4 satellite speeds into orbit |
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| Friday, 11 November 2005 | |
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Inmarsat news: The launch of Inmarsat's second I-4 satellite took place on board a Sea Launch Zenit rocket from the Pacific Ocean at 14:07 UTC (GMT) on November 8. The size of a London double-decker bus and weighing nearly six tons, once in operation the Inmarsat-4 (I-4) spacecraft will deliver simultaneous voice and 3G-compatible broadband data services to mobile users across North, Central and South America. "The successful launch of the second I-4 satellite means that Inmarsat now has the world's most sophisticated commercial network for mobile voice and data services," said Andrew Sukawaty, CEO and chairman of Inmarsat. "It will support an unprecedented evolution of our services - more than doubling the bandwidth available to our mobile users. It marks the beginning of a new era for Inmarsat, in which we expect to roll out a new range of global mobile services to government, aid, and enterprise users." The satellite will now begin deployment and testing, with a number of key milestones ahead before being fully-deployed in geostationary orbit, 35,786 kilometres (22,237 miles) above the Equator, over northern Brazil. The first Inmarsat-4 was launched in March 2005 and is already in commercial service above the Indian Ocean at 64ºE. Together, the two I-4 satellites will be able to deliver Inmarsat's new Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service to 85 per cent of the world's landmass. BGAN is an IP and circuit-switched service that will offer voice telephony and a sophisticated range of high-bandwidth services, including internet access, videoconferencing, LAN and other data services, at speeds up to half a megabit per second. Inmarsat's I-4 satellites are built by EADS Astrium and are part of an eight-year, US$1.5 billion development of Inmarsat's next-generation satellite network. They are 60 times more powerful and have 20 times more capacity than their predecessors, the Inmarsat-3 satellites. |
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 11 November 2005 ) |
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