The excitement is building as Hughes once again pushes the state of the art with JUPITER™, the company’s next-generation Ka-band satellite to be launched in 2012. A true game-changer, JUPITER is designed with over 100 Gbps capacity to further fuel the soaring HughesNet^® consumer business in North America and will serve from 1.5 to 2 million subscribers, more than double the number on the company’s award-winning SPACEWAY^® 3 satellite system.

Capacity like this is transformational for the satellite broadband industry. Let’s take a closer look some other interesting facts about JUPITER.

Q. 100 Gbps—how does that compare with a conventional Ku-band satellite?
A. JUPITER’s capacity is equal to approximately 80 Ku-band satellites Q. What is JUPITER’s orbital life expectancy? A. 15 years or more

Q. How tall will JUPITER stand?
A. Approximately 28 feet (8.5 meters) tall

Q. What is the length of its wing span?
A. 85 ½ feet (26 meters)

Q. What is JUPITER’s mass?
A. 6,100 kilograms (13,448 lbs.). A little more than half of that will be the satellite. The rest will be the fuel, most of which will be consumed to get JUPITER into orbit. Only about four percent of the mass is the fuel required to keep the satellite in orbit for its lifetime.

Q. What will it take to get JUPITER into orbit?
A. To get JUPITER into orbit requires 450 metric tons of propellant, which is more than 70 times the weight of the satellite.

Q. So when is all this going to happen?
A. Satellites can’t be constructed overnight. It takes 33 months to build a satellite of this magnitude. Then it will take three months to get it launched, checked out in orbit, and brought on to live service, which is planned for the second quarter of 2012.

Look for more interesting facts about JUPITER in future issues of Channels—as we get closer to countdown!