WGS F5 (USA 243)

Launch data:

Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  Boeing Company Platform  BSS-702 Operator  USAF Mass at launch  5987 kg Dry Mass   kg Basic shape   Dimension (m)   Equipment  Cross-band (X-band, Global Broadcast, 2-way Ka-band) payload Solar array  2 deployable solar arrays Stabilization   Propulsion  R-4D, 4 XIPS-25 Ion engines DC power   Design lifetime  14 yrs

A WGS satellite in the factory. Credit: Boeing

Description:

• WGS will augment DoD communications services currently provided by the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS), which provides Super High Frequency (SHF) wideband communications, and by the Ka-band Global Broadcast Service (GBS), which uses direct broadcast satellite technology to provide critical information to U.S. and allied forces. With an initial launch scheduled for mid-2004 aboard an Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, WGS will provide early transformational capabilities supporting government objectives for a Transformational Communications Architecture in 2009 and beyond.
• Boeing is building a fleet of 10 WGS satellites, and the next satellite launching later this summer, WGS 6, was financed in cooperation with Australia.
• WGS F5 (USA 243) is the fifth in a major program to upgrade to the military's main communications infrastructure, replacing the aging Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) spacecraft. Each WGS has 10 times the capacity of a DSCS satellite, allowing users to process and receive data quicker than ever before. The craft's communications package provides shaped, steerable spotbeams of bandwidth wherever requested across its field-of-view for X- and Ka-band frequencies, plus the onboard capability to switch signals from one band to the other.
• This Delta 4 will be ULA's fifth launch of the year and the 71st since its creation 77 months ago.

Mission details:

• "WGS 5 factory testing was successfully completed in the first quarter of 2012 and WGS 5 was put into storage in March of 2012," said Boeing WGS Program Director Mark Spiwak.
• The WGS 5 satellite was shipped from Boeing's factory in Los Angeles to the Kennedy Space Center runway, then taken to the commercial Astrotech spacecraft preparation facility in neighboring Titusville on March 9, 2013. It has undergone final testing, the loading of maneuvering fuel and encapsulation within the rocket's nose cone since then.
• 6the May night's 25-mile trip from Titusville entered KSC to drive by the Vehicle Assembly Building and shuttle launch pad before heading down the beach at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to Complex 37 where the Delta 4 awaits.
• The payload was raised into the gantry on May 7e, for mating to the rocket to begin the final two weeks of pre-flight work.
• A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket placed the WGS 5 satellite in supersynchronous geostationary transfer orbit on May 25, 2013. The Wideband Gapfiller Satellite provides communications for the US military, and is built by Boeing/El Segundo using the BSS702 bus. The Delta 4 reached a 185 x 6880 km x 25.6 deg parking orbit at 0047 UTC and then restarted to achieve a 439 x 66900 km x 24.0 deg orbit at 0058 UTC, deploying the satellite at 0107 UTC.
  The satellite will probably raise perigee to an orbit of around 35000 x 67000 km, while lowering inclination, and then lower apogee to reach the target 35780 km equatorial geostationary orbit.

Satellite tracking: