CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The company mostly responsible for New York City-area cable television now has a direct broadcast satellite in orbit following the successful launch Thursday of the most powerful Atlas 5 rocket yet flown.
Rainbow-1 was lofted into a geosynchronous transfer orbit by the 20-story-tall Atlas 5 during a perfect satellite delivery mission that began from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's complex 41 at 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT) and ended 100 minutes later with spacecraft separation.
Cablevision Systems Corp., plans to use the Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft for the next 18 years to offer programming to the entire nation beginning Oct. 1, becoming a direct competitor to DIRECTV and DISH Network.
"This is a lot more fun than putting up wires on television poles," Charles Dolan, Cablevision chairman, said after his company's satellite was confirmed to be in its proper orbit of 2,353 by 22,256 statute miles.
Up to 468 channels of television could be made available to subscribers using 18-inch-diamater antennas, Cablevision officials said, although the number of channels could be smaller depending on how much high bandwidth digital programming is offered.
"It's a pretty incredible day for us," said Wilt Hildenbrand, Cablevision's executive vice president for engineering and technology. "This makes us the first content company to be able to deliver the content as well."As for the specific programming packages that consumers will be able to subscribe to and how much it all will cost, that's all still to be determined and will be announced later, Hildenbrand said.
Thursday's troublefree shot provided the Lockheed Martin launch team with another reason to celebrate: The company has extended its string of successful launches to 66 and continues to enjoy a 100 percent reliability rate for all versions of the Atlas 2, 3 and 5.
Moreover, with the flawless launch of Rainbow-1 the company now has demonstrated in flight all of the various components that make up the Atlas 5 family of boosters.
"This has been a long time in coming," said Greg Gilmore, director of sales and marketing for International Launch Services, the company that markets the Atlas family. "This is a major milestone for us."
In this case it was the first flight of a model 521. That means this Atlas 5 was flying the larger five-meter-diameter nose cone, two solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.
Aerojet built the solid rocket boosters, which are 67 feet (20 meters) long and 5.1 feet (1.6 meters) in diameter. Company officials believe them to be the longest single segment boosters in the world.
As a demonstration of how far the Atlas has evolved, launch officials took every opportunity to showcase the fact that the Aerojet boosters strapped to the first stage as an add-on are comparable in size to the first Atlas A missile launched from the Cape in 1957.
"Essentially we're flying an Atlas 5 with two Atlas A rockets strapped on," said Adrian Laffitte, Lockheed Martin's director of Atlas launch operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station "Those are huge solids."
NASA's solid rocket booster recovery ships were on station in a long-shot attempt to retrieve the spent casings in the Atlantic Ocean. Lockheed Martin paid NASA for the service and hopes that if the boosters are recovered their engineers can learn something from them.
An hour after launch an aircraft spotted what turned out to be one of the booster's nose cones, but it won't be recovered, said Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Julie Andrews. With darkness falling on the area it will be Friday morning before the search continues.
Also of note on this mission was the first use of a new 17.8-foot (5.4-meter) diameter fairing, built by Contraves Space AG of Zurich, which is designed to completely encapsulate the Centaur upper stage and the satellite cargo.
Contraves is offering three different lengths for the Atlas 5 500-series fairing. The short one is 68 feet (20.7 meters) high, the medium is 77 feet (23.4 meters) and the long fairing is 87 feet (26.4 meters) tall. This first Atlas 5 carried the short fairing.
The next Atlas launch is targeted for September when an Atlas 2AS is to carry Superbird 6, a commercial communications satellite, from Cape Canaveral. It's not clear when the next Atlas 5 will fly. Several contracts are pending, according to Gilmore, who said that Thursday's successful launch should help seal some deals.
Another factor at play is competitor Boeing's announcement this week that it would no longer actively seek commercial launch services contracts for its Delta 4 program, although it would continue to market the Sea Launch Zenit 3SL.
ILS's Gilmore wouldn't comment directly on whether or not he views Boeing's position as a benefit to them and Lockheed Martin.
"It remains to be seen. The market has been very dynamic and it appears it will continue to be so," Gilmore said.
Also dodging a direct answer, Cablevision's Hildenbrand said the total cost of the Rainbow-1 satellite delivery mission was between $200 and $250 million.
Liftoff was delayed 25 minutes while the Lockheed Martin launch team troubleshooted a pair of technical problems involving a helium leak and a balky liquid oxygen valve, while also waiting for clouds to clear. All the concerns were quickly taken care of and the blast off took place without incident.
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