Viasat has launched the third of its Viasat-3 Ka-band satellites, designed to add more than 1Tbps of throughput capacity to the company’s network, including its Inmarsat NexusWave offering for the maritime sector.
The launch was carried out from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company – ironically also the operator of satellite services competitor Starlink. Once in service, this third Viasat-3 satellite (VS-3 F3) is designed to provide a significant jump in broadband capacity over the Asia-Pacific region.
The VS-3 series consists of geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites, located about 36,000km above the equator, with each individual satellite designed to have more than double the capacity of Viasat’s entire existing fleet of earlier satellites.
VS-3 F1 was launched in 2023 and has been providing service to Viasat’s airline customers since entering service in 2024, however bandwidth capacity was significantly reduced from its 1Tbps design speed due to an antenna malfunction shortly after launch.
The company had better luck with VS-3 F2, launched in 2025 and expected to come into service over the Americas by May 2026, after design changes and additional antenna system tests were conducted to successfully avoid a repeat of the previous issues.
Design improvements continued with the selection of a different reflector manufacturer for the third spacecraft in the series, F3, which has now launched and is awaiting deployment to complete the series.
The F3 satellite is expected to come into service before the end of this year after undergoing orbital positioning and testing.
Inmarsat has already been working with antenna manufacturer Intellian on a new VS60 maritime terminal designed for use with the new satellites, a unit which recorded download speeds above 250Mbps in sea trials late last year.
