Artistic rendition of Inmarsat's Alphasat satellite, courtesy of the European Space Agency.

Alphasat has been under the remote control of Inmarsat’s Mission Operations Team in Toulouse, France, since the first telemetry signal was acquired at the Inmarsat ground station in Beijing, just 20 minutes after the launch by Ariane 5 from French Guiana on 25 July.

The critical task of boosting the satellite into geosynchronous orbit required firing the spacecraft’s powerful liquid apogee engine four times, with each burn using the equivalent of 60 tanks of car fuel. The final operational deployment will see the blooming of Alphasat’s 11-metre (36-ft) reflector on August 3rd.

Alphasat joins Inmarsat’s award-winning I-4 satellite fleet, which has been powering global broadband connectivity for government and commercial customers in the L-band since 2009. The new satellite will provide additional mobile satellite communications capacity over Europe, the Middle East and Africa.