The countdown to liftoff for a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket intended to launch JUPITER 3, a Hughes communications satellite the size of a school bus, Wednesday night from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center for a massive communications satellite was aborted.
With 1 minute, 5 seconds remaining in the countdown, the mission was canceled. No explanation was disclosed. There will be a backup opportunity on Thursday night within the same launch window.
Unveiling the Massive Communications Satellite
According to Hughes’ vice president of corporate communications Sharyn Nerenberg, the $90 million JUPITER 3 satellite, built by Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, is the biggest commercial communications satellite ever built.
It will have an airplane’s wingspan once it is deployed. According to Maxar, it weighs more than 20 tons.
Launch Complex 39A was to serve as the launch site, with liftoff scheduled for 11:04 pm EDT and a launch window of 99 minutes.
With slightly more than six minutes left in the countdown, Ronnie Foreman, commercial sales manager for SpaceX and host of the launch’s live stream, declared that the ship and payload are in good condition.
JUPITER 3—also known as EchoStar XXIV—will offer a 500-gigabit-per-second transmission capacity throughout the Americas.
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Expanding Connectivity in the Americas
Customers in North and South America, including ordinary consumers, small enterprises, and the government, are to be served by the satellite.
JUPITER 2, its predecessor, is the next fastest at 200 GB/s. She added that Jupiter 1 comes in third with 120 Gb/s.
Applications will enable Wi-Fi for commercial flights, maritime interests, enterprise networking, and cellular telephone service in addition to increasing capacity and connection speeds, extending its resources to regions with a particular shortage of fiber optic and cable services.
JUPITER 3 will need to be launched with the help of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, one of the most potent launchers currently in use.