TAMPA, Fla. — Viasat expects to start providing Wi-Fi to planes by the end of June from ViaSat-3 F1, the satellite that lost more than 90% of its 1 terabit per second capacity after an antenna deployment failure last year.
The geostationary satellite is otherwise performing well and should be operating commercially at some point in the second quarter of 2024, Viasat chair and CEO Mark Dankberg said during the operator’s Feb. 6 earnings call, after achieving between 200 and 300 megabits per second peak speeds during tests.
Dankberg said a recently completed investigation identified several corrective actions for ViaSat-3 F2, which has an antenna from the same supplier and was set to fly on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket last fall but is now slated to launch in the first half of 2025.
While he did not name the antenna supplier, a CBS News report citing a Viasat executive before the April 30 SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of ViaSat-3 F1 said Northrop Grumman’s Astro Aerospace provided the antenna.
Boeing has a contract to deliver three ViaSat-3 spacecraft in total for Carlsbad, California-based Viasat, which is providing the payloads.
ViaSat-3 F3, the third and final satellite in the constellation, uses a different antenna and remains on track for a launch in the fourth quarter of 2024 on an undisclosed rocket.
The original plan was for ViaSat-3 F1 to cover the Americas, ViaSat-3 F2 to focus on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and ViaSat-3 F3 to provide services over Asia Pacific.
Following the antenna issue, Viasat has said ViaSat-3 F1 will ultimately be replaced by ViaSat-3 F2 or ViaSat-3 F3 over the Americas and moved elsewhere.
Viasat has filed a $421 million insurance claim for the hobbled spacecraft and Dankberg said it has already received initial payments.
The operator is also in the middle of claiming $349 million in insurance proceeds for the total loss of Inmarsat-6 (I-6) F2, which ran into an issue…
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