XM Satellite Radio has announced the successful launch of its XM-3 satellite. Liftoff occurred on February 28 at 10:51 pm EST off the Sea Launch Odyssey Launch Platform in open waters of the Pacific Ocean on the equator.
The XM-3 satellite was inserted into a geosynchronous transfer orbit, on its way to an orbital location for routine testing prior to placement in its final orbital position at 85 degrees West Longitude. A ground station in South Africa acquired the spacecraft’s first signal an hour after liftoff, as planned.
Built by Boeing Satellite Systems, the XM-3 satellite is a Boeing 702
spacecraft, one of the most powerful satellites built today, designed to
provide 18 kilowatts of total power at beginning of life.
Like its sister spacecraft, XM-1 and XM-2 – also launched by Sea Launch – XM-3 will transmit more than 150 channels of digital-quality music, news, sports, talk, comedy and children’s programming to subscribers nationwide.
An earlier launch, scheduled for February 23, was canceled because the automatic system of the oceanic platform Odysseus issued a “cancel” command a few minutes before the carrier rocket was to be launched.
The rocket did not leave the launch site, and a probable crash during the flight was prevented.
It was not the first setback for the Sea Launch experts who tried to launch U.S. communication satellites of the XM-Radio series from the Pacific.
Initially the launch of the Zenit with the XM 3-Radio satellite was slated for February 17. But it became known on the night of February 16 that the launch had already been put off for 24 hours.
A similar situation also ocurred on February 17, 18 and 19. At that time the launching was prevented by increased waves and wind at the Odysseus platform.
Earlier, on January 9, 2001, automatics also cancelled a launching two seconds before the start of a similar Zenit carrying the first satellite of the XM 1-Radio series. It was orbited after six months, on May 9, 2001.
