Monday, January 12, 2015

ViaSat Selects SpaceX For Satellite Launch

Carlsbad-based ViaSat, which develops high speed communications satellites, said this morning that it has selected Hawthorne-based SpaceX to launch its next high capacity, broadband satellite, ViaSat-2. Financial details of the deal were not announced. ViaSat said that SpaceX will launnch its payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in late summer of 2016. SpaceX is in the midst of the development of the Falcon Heavy, which is expected to be able to lift twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy---currently the world's most powerful rocket--into orbit. ViaSat's satellites are being used to provide the Exede satellite Internet service, which is used both for in-flight Internet service as well as access to the Internet in remote areas.

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