{"id":245841,"date":"2025-11-05T19:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245841\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T19:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:11:15","slug":"watch-atlas-v-rocket-launch-huge-communications-satellite-to-orbit-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245841\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Atlas V rocket launch huge communications satellite to orbit today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocket Launch: Atlas ViaSat-3 Flight 2 – YouTube
\n\"Rocket<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will launch the big and powerful ViaSat-3 F2 satellite to orbit today (Nov. 5), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n

ViaSat-3 F2, which weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms), is scheduled to lift off atop an Atlas V<\/a> today from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a>, during a 44-minute window that opens at 10:24 p.m. EST (0324 GMT on Nov. 6).<\/p>\n

You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company<\/a>. Coverage will begin about 20 minutes before liftoff.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\n

\"a\n<\/p>\n

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches the first 27 of Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit on April 28, 2025. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan today, the Atlas V will deploy ViaSat-3 F2 into geostationary transfer orbit about 3.5 hours after liftoff. The satellite will then spend several months making its way to geostationary orbit<\/a> (GEO), a circular path that lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this altitude, orbital speed matches our planet’s rotational speed. Satellites in GEO therefore “hover” over the same patch of Earth<\/a> continuously, making it a popular destination for spy and communications craft.<\/p>\n

ViaSat-3 F2 is expected to start beaming broadband service to customers in early 2026. As its name suggests, it will be the second ViaSat-3 satellite to do so, after ViaSat-3 F1, which launched atop a SpaceX<\/a> Falcon Heavy rocket in April 2023<\/a>. A third such craft is expected to launch next year, rounding out the ViaSat-3 constellation.<\/p>\n

Each ViaSat-3 satellite is “designed to be capable of rapidly shifting capacity throughout its coverage area to deliver bandwidth where and when it\u2019s needed most,” Viasat, a California-based telecom company, wrote in a description of the mini constellation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

“This is important to meet the increasing demand of commercial, consumer and defense customers, where the location of high-demand hotspots can change over the course of the day,” the company added.<\/p>\n

According to that description, ViaSat-3 F1 provides connectivity primarily to airline passengers. ViaSat-3 F2 will “add more than 1 Tbps capacity to our network over the Americas,” and ViaSat-3 F3 will do the same for the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

\n

\"a\n<\/p>\n

United Launch Alliance hoists the ViaSat-3 F2 ultra-high-capacity broadband satellite atop the Atlas V rocket in the Vertical Integration Facility-G adjacent to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. (Image credit: United Launch Alliance)<\/p>\n

The Atlas V has flown more than 100 missions since its 2002 debut, but its days are numbered.<\/p>\n

ULA plans to retire the workhorse rocket in 2030 or thereabouts and has already fielded a replacement \u2014 the Vulcan Centaur<\/a>, which has three launches under its belt to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rocket Launch: Atlas ViaSat-3 Flight 2 – YouTube Watch On A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-245841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}