Tuesday was the planed launch of the new Echostar 17 satellite that will be put into operation for the new Hughesnet Gen4 Satellite Internet service, which is planed for release later this year. A couple of weeks ago Space Systems Loral (SSL) announced they would delay the launch to do some last minute modifications to the satellite.
This past week Arianespace (the company who is launching the satellite into orbit) annouced the new launch date will be July 5th at around 5:30p.m. EST. The satellite will be sent up to the geocentric orbit location of 107W by a Ariane 5 Rocket. The payload will also include another satellite, MSG-3. The life expecticy of the Hughesnet Gen4 satellite will be up to 15 years.
The launch will take about 30 minutes and can be viewed live: Hughesnet Gen4 satellite launch.
The Echostar 17 satellite was built based on the LS-1300 platform from “SSL”. The 1300 series is one of SSL top model satellites, which has a long history of success for the company.

