Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite launch takes places as scheduled
Inmarsat launched its third Inmarsat-4 (I4F3) satellite on Monday, August 18 at 22:43 GMT (18:43 EDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
For updates on the satellite’s progression through the various Breeze M burn stages you can consult the International Launch Services website.
The launch of the Inmarsat-4 satellite will provide global coverage for BGAN, FleetBroadband (FBB) and SwiftBroadband (SBB) and enhance service and accessibility quality through improved inclination angles over the land masses.
In late February 2009, the BGAN service is scheduled to become available throughout Asia-Pacific including China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Inmarsat will also be able to concentrate more spot beams over the EMEA regions, expected to improve the quality of the BGAN service.
2 short term outages affecting BGAN, FBB and SBB are also to be expected:
- The 1st will affect users in the mid-east Atlantic region, far western Africa, Ireland, and certain parts of the UK. If the launch of the I4F3 occurs as scheduled end August, this outage is expected to extend from mid-January 2009 through mid-February 2009.
- The second will affect users in eastern Asia, Western Australia, and the far western regions of the Pacific Ocean. This outage is expected to begin mid-February 2009 and last for just under 3 weeks.
In addition, users of Existing & Evolved spot beam services (i.e., GAN, Swift, Fleet 33, Fleet 55 and Mini-M) in the Atlantic Ocean Region-West region will see a change in the spot beam coverage areas in mid January 2009.
For more details, please see the satellite repositioning map (PDF).
Please note that land portable BGAN users will need to repoint their antennas to access the I4 satellites at their new positions. Existing & Evolved, SBB, FBB and vehicular BGAN antennas should adjust automatically to the appropriate satellites in their new locations.
