TAMPA, Fla. — Viasat expects to know next week what caused the antenna deployment issue that severely impaired its debut ViaSat-3 broadband satellite over the Americas, the operator’s CEO announced during earnings results Nov. 8.
Mark Dankberg said Viasat would also be getting more information from the antenna’s supplier, which he did not name, on how long it would take to ensure a second, mostly built ViaSat-3 could launch without the issue that reduced the throughput on its first by more than 90%.
According to a CBS News report citing a Viasat executive before the April 30 SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of ViaSat-3 F1, the first of three planned 1 terabit per second (Tbps) satellites, Northrop Grumman’s Astro Aerospace provided the antenna.
Dankberg said a third ViaSat-3 under development, which uses different antennas from another supplier and so is unaffected by the anomaly, now has a contract with an undisclosed provider to launch roughly this time next year.
Boeing is under contract to deliver all three ViaSat-3 geostationary satellites for payloads provided by Viasat.
The second satellite, ViaSat-3 F2, was previously slated to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance this fall, and the final ViaSat-3 F3 satellite was set to cover Asia Pacific.
Either ViaSat-3 F2 or ViaSat-3 F3 will instead replace ViaSat-3 F1 over the Americas, Dankberg said, and ViaSat-3 F1 would then be relocated.
Doubling down on mobility
ViaSat-3’s satellite system is software-defined on the ground, which Dankberg said enables the company to optimize ViaSat-3 F1’s remaining throughput for mobile connectivity needs.
The Carlsbad, California-based company’s fixed broadband business depends more on the volume of bandwidth than on dynamic beam steering, he added, and will decline until the next ViaSat-3 launches and gets in position.
However, Viasat expects strong demand for mobile connectivity on airplanes, ships, and…
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