TerreStar-1

TerreStar-1 is an American mobile communications satellite that Space Systems/Loral, the company that later became Maxar Space Systems, built for TerreStar Networks on its SSL-1300 platform. It carries S-band transponders and a large unfurlable reflector, 18 metres across, which lets it generate hundreds of spot beams over the United States, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands for two gigahertz mobile voice and data services, with an ancillary terrestrial component filling in places where a satellite signal is blocked. Its launch mass of 6,910 kilograms made it the second heaviest single satellite sent to geosynchronous transfer orbit and the second largest commercial communications satellite then built, until Telstar 19V passed it in 2018. An Ariane 5 ECA lifted it from Kourou on 1 July 2009 for a service life of 15 years at 111 degrees west. Dish Network bought the satellite out of the TerreStar bankruptcy.