SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivered the SES-10 communications satellite Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first stage of the rocket then successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The historic mission marked the first re-use of a rocket. Falcon 9’s first stage for the SES-10 mission previously supported the successful CRS-8 mission in April 2016.
SES-10, which was built by Airbus Defence and Space and is based on the Eurostar E3000 platform, features a Ku-band payload of 55 36MHz transponder equivalents, of which 27 are incremental. The satellite is wholly dedicated to providing service to Latin America, replacing capacity currently provided by other SES satellites at 67 degrees West, as well as bring additional capacity to Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The satellite will operate as the Andean Community’s Simón Bolivar 2 providing satellite capacity for each Andean Member State.
