Brenda Marie Rivers
The U.S. Air Force’s Boeing-built communications satellite has been attached onto United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket scheduled to take off on March 13, Spaceflight Now reported Saturday.
The military branch’s 10th Wideband Global Satellite Communications platform was assembled onto the ULA rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida after being fuelled with maneuvering propellants at a facility in Titusville.
Cape Canaveral teams now expect to verify Delta 4 and WGS 10's electrical and mechanical connections while conducting readiness reviews and countdown exercises over the next few weeks.
Delta 4 will carry WGS 10 until it reaches elliptical geostationary transfer orbit and head toward an operating post over 22K miles above the equator.
WGS 10 will be a part of a military satellite fleet designed to transmit classified and unclassified data in X-band and Ka-band frequencies between U.S. and allied forces worldwide as part of a potential 14-year mission.
The upcoming launch will serve as Delta 4’s second flight of 2019, with another single-core Delta 4 rocket carrying a GPS navigation satellite slated to lift off from Cape Canaveral in July.
