The second of the U.S. Navy’s new generation of mobile communications satellites, United Launch, Alliance Atlas 5, has been launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Friday.
The first of the MUOS satellites was launched in February 2012.
The lift off of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS)-2 satellites was delayed until 9:00 AM (EDT) because of the upper level winds.
The Atlas 5 rocket’s Centaur upper stage had accomplished two of three scheduled burns by 9:30 AM. The third scheduled burn, which will deploy MUOS-2 into a geostationary transfer robit, was originally scheduled at 12:00 PM (EDT). Capt. Paul Ghyzel, the Navy’s MUOS program manager, said in a prelaunch conference call with reporters on July 15, “The satellite is expected to take eight days to maneuver into its geostationary orbit some 36,000 kilometers above the equator”. After 6 months of check-out period, the navy anticipates to declare MUOS-2 operational.
MUOS-2, weighing over 6,800kilograms, is the heaviest satellite launched aboard an Atlas 5, according to Jim Sponnick, United Launch Alliance’s vice president of Atlas and Delta programs.
The satellite is supplied with a UHF-band narrow band payload to give links to ships at sea and to ground forces operating in hard-to-reach areas such as beneath dense forest canopies.
Built by Lockheed Martin Space systems of Sunnyvale, California, The multibillion-dollar MUOS system is designed to provide cellular phone-like communications to mobile forces, 10x faster than the legacy system. It ultimately consists of 4 geostationary-orbiting satellites plus one on-orbit spare, and 4 ground stations.
Ghyzel said, each satellite provides coverage for about one-third of the earth but the specific area of service for MUOS-2 has not yet been determined.
The third MUOS satellite is expected to be launched in 2014 and the program is expected to achieve full operational capability in 2015 providing service through 2025.
