Viasat preparing to start services from hobbled ViaSat-3 satellite

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...

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