SatNews

Satellite Industry Intelligence Since 1983

Astranis to launch next four satellites on Tuesday, December 17th, via SpaceX Falcon

Photo of the MicroGEO satellite, courtesy of Astranis.

The next four Astranis satellites are complete and ready for launch. They are currently at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and on track for their scheduled launch date of December 17th — Astranis is ready to go from one to many satellites on-orbit.

Astranis satellites and company technicians, photo courtesy of the company.

The launch will be on a dedicated SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Only the four Astranis satellites will be on board and they will launch into a supersync Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) orbit. These four satellites are comprised of the Astranis MicroGEO communications satellites and are headed to three customers across three countries.

  • Two are bound for CONUS, to support in-flight connectivity for our customer Anuvu. These satellites will be named NuView Alpha and NuView Bravo.
  • One satellite, AGILA, is the first communications satellite ever dedicated to the Philippines and was named by Philippines President BongBong Marcos Jr. last year.
  • The final satellite, UtilitySat, is the world’s first multi-mission GEO satellite and will serve a number of customers, beginning with an Astranis Block 3 customer, APCO, for a communications mission over Mexico.

This launch will mark many firsts…

  • This is the first time a single satellite manufacturer has flown four of its own satellites on a single launch to GEO.
  • By our estimation, Astranis will also become the fourth company ever to launch 4 or more satellites to GEO in a single calendar year — joining SES, Intelsat, and Eutelsat.
  • Astranis will have launched more satellites to GEO over the last two years than any other operator.

Astranis CEO, John Gedmark, said, “This is a huge milestone for Astranis. We’re going from one to many satellites. And this is the first time anyone has ever launched 4 satellites together like this. These are our most advanced satellites yet. With a number of improvements that will generate increased capacity and affordability. We couldn’t be more excited to deliver for our customers, providing dedicated broadband networks in a way they can’t get anywhere else. With this launch we will prove that Astranis can ship and operate multiple satellites at once. We are well on our way to the increased manufacturing cadence we need to hit to meet all of customer demand, including both commercial and government.”