11.03.2023
Hughes unveils Jupiter 3
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Hughes Network System unveiled Jupiter 3, a massive geostationary communications satellite built by Maxar Technologies.
While much of the industry focuses on packing increasing capability into small satellites, Jupiter 3 is a reminder large spacecraft remain important for certain applications.
With its antennas and solar panels stowed, Jupiter 3 is about the size of a standard school bus. The satellite, weighing roughly nine metric tons, is designed to offer 500 gigabit-per-second Ka-band capacity for North and South America.
“We have the ability to put all of that capacity down in that specified region,” Adrian Morris, Hughes Network Systems executive vice president of engineering, told SpaceNews. “These satellites are suitable for growing a market in a certain region.”
Jupiter 3 satellite solar array extended at Maxar Technologies manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, Calif. Credit: Hughes
Launch and Commissioning
On March 8, Maxar engineers and technicians were preparing to move Jupiter 3 to a vibration table. Environmental testing is one of the final steps before the satellite is shipped to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. No launch date has yet been announced, but Jupiter 3 is likely to fly in the second quarter of this year.
After commissioning is completed, Jupiter 3 will begin providing service from 95 degrees west in the third quarter, Hughes executives said March 8 during a press briefing at the Maxar facility here.
Jupiter 3 “will double the Echostar-Hughes fleet capacity when it goes into operations in that orbital slot,” Morris said.
HughesNet, with more than a million subscribers, will be able to add hundreds of thousands of additional subscribers with Jupiter 3, said Mark Wymer, Hughes Network Systems senior vice president.
Waiting on Jupiter 3
When Echostar, Hughes’ parent company, ordered Jupiter 3 from Maxar in 2017, the satellite was expected to launch in 2021. Manufacturing took longer than expected largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and extensive nonrecurring engineering work, Maxar official said.
Maxar is compensating Echostar for the delays under an amended contract announced in November.
“We’ve been waiting for this new satellite and the capacity that it brings for quite some time,” Wymer said.
New Products and Services
Hughes is seeing increasing demand for data and high-speed connectivity from customers working from home, accessing education from home and relying on e-commerce for deliveries.
“We’ve had to create products and services that meet their demands and needs,” Wymer said. “This satellite is going to bring to us 50-megabit per second, 100-megabit per second [download speeds] for people that live in underserved and unserved areas.”
Jupiter 3 also will allow Hughes to extend Wi-Fi networks in South America. Customers who visit a Wi-Fi hotspot can gain temporary access for a fee rather than subscribing to a monthly service.
“It allows for a more cost-effective and economical way for someone to get services as they need them,” Wymer said.
Throughout Latin America, Jupiter 3 will enable Hughes to provide backhaul for mobile network operators as well.
Ground Segment
Hughes has established an extensive ground network for Jupiter 3. Data will be uplinked from gateways to the satellite in V-band and downlinked from the satellite to gateways in Q-band.
“We will have much higher bandwidth at each gateway than we were able to achieve with just the Ka-band at those gateways” for Jupiter 1 and Jupiter 2, said Stan Kay, Hughes Network Systems vice president of advanced development.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 13.04.2023
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SpaceX shows off shiny Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of April 18 launch (photos)
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is readying for its sixth mission overall.
SpaceX shared this photo of Falcon Heavy in the hangar on April 11, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Serious rocket power is on view in a Florida SpaceX hangar.
On Tuesday (April 11), SpaceX showcased its Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of its scheduled April 18 launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida's Space Coast. (We will carry coverage of the launch live here at Space.com, via SpaceX.)
Images of the massive rocket shared by SpaceX on Twitter(opens in new tab) include a close-up of the 27 Merlin engines that will bring the booster into space, and a long shot of the trio of Falcon 9-derived cores near an open door.
The SpaceX Falcon Heavy is set to send a ViaSat-3 broadband communications satellite to orbit as the first of a three-part constellation. Also on board will be a small communications satellite called Arcturus, operated by California-based Astranis, according to the Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Center(opens in new tab).
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, the world's most powerful booster, made its debut flight on Feb. 6, 2018. Famously, it carried a Tesla car and a mannequin (nicknamed "Starman") into space in front of live cameras.
There was a three-year gap between missions that ended in November 2022, caused primarily by customer delays in getting their payloads ready for liftoff. The latest Falcon Heavy mission, its fifth, lifted off in January 2023 and began a classified mission for the U.S. Space Force called USSF-67; a few other rideshare satellites also went to space during the flight.
The trio of Falcon Heavy first-stage boosters are designed to be reusable, but not all missions do so due to fuel requirements, among other parameters. On this mission, all three boosters will crash into the ocean, according to Everyday Astronaut(opens in new tab).
The Falcon Heavy's first-stage Merlin engines create more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, according to its SpaceX specifications page(opens in new tab). The rocket was the most powerful currently operating until NASA's Space Launch System carried the Artemis 1 moon mission aloft on Nov. 16, 2022.
Quelle: SC