Launch of the third and final Inmarsat I-4 satellite on board a Proton rocket has been scheduled for 14 August.

Inmarsat launched the first two I-4 satellites in 2005. The satellite network provider’s new, higher-bandwidth aeronautical service, SwiftBroadband, will be accessible worldwide - except the extreme polar regions - following the successful launch of the third I-4 satellite, which will take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Built by EADS Astrium, the satellite will be lofted into space on a Proton Breeze-M rocket operated by International Launch Services (ILS). This is the first ILS mission since an anomaly occurred after the March lift-off of a communications satellite, AMC-14, for SES Americom.

The launch vehicle is now ready to return to flight after a Russian State Commission and an ILS-led independent “failure review” panel concluded its enquiries into th

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 2:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.