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Delta IV rocket launches military satellite from Cape

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday, July 23, 2015.

CAPE CANAVERAL –  A satellite adding to the “backbone” of space-based military communications safely reached orbit after an 8:07 p.m. Thursday blastoff atop a powerful Delta IV rocket.

Launching just before sunset, the 22-story United Launch Alliance rocket roared from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with 1.6 million pounds of thrust, assisted by four solid rocket motors.

The rocket shot through a layer of low, darkening clouds, up into sunlight that captured its exhaust plume in a brilliant white glow as it arced to the southeast over the Atlantic Ocean.

On top of the Delta IV was the seventh member of the Air Force’s highest capacity satellite communications system, called Wideband Global SATCOM, or WGS.

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Forty-two minutes after liftoff, the $445-million satellite built by Boeing separated from the rocket’s upper stage as planned over the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, on its way to an orbit 22,300 miles over the equator.

The WGS constellation beams high-definition video and broadband high-speed data around the world, supporting military operations, video feeds from drones, even news broadcasts for troops.

“You can think of this as being like DIRECTV,” said Capt. Doug Downs of the Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base. “It’s always there, always broadcasting, you just have to tune in. Warfighters can do that to get some situational awareness.”

For example, Downs said during ULA’s launch webcast, the WGS satellite might route a battalion commander in Afghanistan’s call for support to allied forces on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean.

“It doesn’t matter how far apart they are, or what is in the way, that communication will get through,” he said.

Three more WGS satellites are expected to launch by 2018, one in each of the next three years.

Weighing about 7,600 pounds and designed to last at least 14 years, each WGS satellite provides more communications capacity than the entire constellation gradually being replaced, the Defense Satellite Communications System.

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A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday, July 23, 2015.

Each satellite’s bandwidth could carry the equivalent of 872 TV channels or more than 800,000 phone connections, according to Boeing.

Improvements since the first satellite launched in 2007 will enable the newly WGS-7 to provide 17 percent more bandwidth than its predecessors, and the next launch will provide better performance.

“Our forces need communications,” said Rico Attanasio, Boeing’s director of Military Satellite Communications. “It’s a fundamental need, and it simply has to be there. More and more, WGS is what puts it there.”

The launch was ULA’s seventh this year, and 30th by a Delta IV rocket since its debut in 2002.

The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture’s next launch is targeted for Aug. 31, with an Atlas V rocket aiming to loft a different type of military communications satellite from Cape Canaveral.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.