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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is targeting a 7: 21 p.m. Monday launch of a “behemoth” commercial communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center. You can watch live in the player above.
Weighing in at nearly 13,500 pounds atop the rocket, the fourth Inmarsat-5 satellite will be the heaviest load lofted by a Falcon 9 yet.
The 230-foot rocket will need all its fuel and 1.7 million pounds of liftoff thrust to deliver the spacecraft larger than a double-decker bus on its way to an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator. As a result, SpaceX will not attempt to land the rocket’s first stage either at Cape Canaveral or at sea, and the Falcon 9 booster is not equipped with landing legs.
The Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 satellite, built by Boeing, will complete Inmarsat’s four-satellite Global Xpress constellation focused on delivering high-speed broadband data to mobile customers including commercial aircraft and ships and the U. S. military.
“I’ m sure we’ re going to have a really, really exciting show (Monday) , ” said Inmarsat CEO Rupert Pearce. “Everyone at Inmarsat, SpaceX and Boeing is really, really pumped about this launch. It’s a very significant one for us at Inmarsat, because we call it the end of the beginning of the Global Xpress era.”
