Inmarsat’s newest satellite, GX5, has passed another milestone with 24/7 control of the spacecraft now taken over by the company’s Satellite Control Centre (SCC) in London.
Launch teams from Inmarsat and the satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space have been carrying out rigorous testing and calibration since GX5, the fifth satellite in the Global Xpress fleet, was launched from Kourou, French Guiana on 26 November 2019.
Since then, more than 700 tests have been performed across the payload’s multi-beam antennas and the four steerable antennas, which will deliver more capacity than the entire GX1-GX4 fleet combined.
The SCC will now guide GX5 on the journey towards its final on-station location. When the satellite enters commercial service later this year, it will meet growing demand across Europe and the Middle East, in particular for aviation Wi-Fi and commercial maritime services.
Over the next four years, the GX fleet will be joined by a further seven advanced payloads, which represent unprecedented enhancement in overall capacity and capabilities of the GX network; the world’s first and only, globally available, seamless mobile broadband network.
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