Atlas V rocket successfully launched the MUOS-5 satellite for the U.S. Navy.
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Watch the Atlas V rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida scheduled for Friday, June 24, 2016 live online.
In partnership with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and the 45th Space Wing, the Navy Communications Satellite Program Office (PMW 146) is prepared to launch the MUOS-5 satellite, an on-orbit spare that will complete the five-satellite constellation.
It was ULA’s first launch of an Atlas V since a glitch occurred on an April blastoff that carried Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsule into space on an International Space Station resupply run.
The second-stage engine completed the first of three planned “burns” about 12-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, putting the vehicle into a preliminary orbit.
Through its “Launch and Learn” program, Lockheed Martin is committed to working with schools, educators and nonprofits to expose students to the space industry and foster interest in careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
The fifth MUOS satellite, like the first four, will bolster a constellation of six older satellites providing a network critical to forces from every service who are on the move and working in hard terrain, from mountains to forests to dense city streets.
ULA and the Air Force would not discuss in detail the last Atlas V mission’s engine issue, citing proprietary supplier information, or say how close the launch came to failure.
MUOS satellite provide “beyond-line-of-sight communications”, allowing soldiers to make encrypted smartphone-like calls to almost anywhere in the world, handling simultaneous text and video. Four days later, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 put a commercial communications satellite in orbit.
The MUOS network provides near-global coverage, including communications reach deep into polar regions. “Communications for our service men and women will change drastically”.
“MUOS is a global military cellular network”, Woempner said.
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Next up for ULA’s Atlas 5: launch of a classified military satellite from Cape Canaveral on July 28 followed by launch of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return spacecraft on September 8.
