Atlas V rocket launches EchoStar 19 satellite

United Launch Alliance closed the books on Cape Canaveral’s 2016 launch schedule with an Atlas V rocket’s successful Sunday afternoon delivery of a high-speed Internet satellite to orbit.

The 20-story rocket shot from its Launch Complex 41 pad with nearly 2 million pounds of thrust at 2:13 p.m., trailing a long plume of white exhaust as it thundered southeast over the Atlantic Ocean, just as rain drops began to fall near the launch site.

Thirty-two minutes later, the rocket’s Centaur upper stage deployed EchoStar 19, the highest-capacity commercial broadband satellite ever launched.

Hughes Network Services, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp., will use the nearly 15,000-pound spacecraft to provide Internet access to homes and businesses in parts of North America lacking reliable high-speed connections, and for in-flight access on airlines.

Mike Cook, senior vice president at Hughes, said the launch was “very significant” in part because the company's last satellite, EchoStar 17 launched in 2012, had no more spare capacity, limiting its ability to grow a base of 1 million U.S. customers.

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“It is something that from a business perspective we’ve been waiting for for a long time,” said Cook. “And it is something which we think is of significance to the country. Today, everybody is looking for and needs high-quality Internet access. This mission will allow us to bring even better services to the underserved communities across the country.”

The satellite worth roughly $500 million was headed for a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles over the equator, where spacecraft match the speed of Earth’s rotation and so appear from the ground to stay in fixed positions in the sky.

“It’s such a complicated satellite — one of the most complicated that we have ever done before,” said Dave Pidgeon, vice president of EchoStar programs for satellite builder Space Systems Loral, in an interview shown on ULA’s launch Webcast. “It’s good to see this launch go off really well.”

A glitch in the rocket’s avionics system triggered computers to automatically abort the countdown just over a minute before a planned 1:27 p.m. liftoff, at the opening of Sunday's two-hour launch window.

The issue was resolved and the rocket set sail 46 minutes later. Minutes later, as showers moved in, a dramatic double-rainbow formed east of the Cape.

The mission was a rare commercial launch for ULA, which is more aggressively pitching its ability to launch on time and reliably as a competitive advantage over the likes of SpaceX.

It was ULA’s 12th successful launch in as many tries in 2016, including 10 missions departing from Cape Canaveral, and the 68th Atlas V flight without a major failure since its debut in 2002.

Overall, the Cape hosted 18 rocket launches in 2016, including 10 by ULA, seven by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and one – last Thursday – by Orbital ATK’s air-launched Pegasus.

That total fell well short of the Air Force 45th Space Wing's prediction in January of 30 or more launches, largely because SpaceX has been grounded for the past four months.

The company has been investigating what caused a Falcon 9 to explode on its launch pad during a Sept. 1 countdown rehearsal, and hopes to return to flight next month from California.

Another Atlas V will kick off ULA’s 2017 manifest, targeting a Jan. 19 liftoff from the Cape with a U.S. government missile warning satellite.

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