Corporate
The satellite is made by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage and Portsmouth in the UK prior to final assembly and testing in Toulouse, France. I-6 F2 will be tested thoroughly for several months. The diameter of the Airbus testing chamber pictured is 10 metres, about as high as a four-storey building, and it is capable of creating temperature extremes from -173 Celsius to 120 Celsius (-279 to 248 Fahrenheit) including rapid cycling and long-duration (30-day) temperature plateaus to simulate the harsh conditions of space.
I-6 F2, almost as large as a double-decker bus and with a solar array 'wingspan' larger than a Boeing 767, will be launched in Q1 2023 by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. It follows its 'twin' I-6 F1, which was launched by MHI in Japan in December 2021.
The I-6 series of satellites are the most sophisticated commercial communications satellites ever and are operated from 36,000km (22,500 miles) above the Earth at Inmarsat’s control centre in London, UK.
(Image credit: Inmarsat / Airbus Defence and Space.)