North American broadband satellite launched

A Canadian telecommunication satellite that is scheduled to provide broadband Internet service across North America was launched on Saturday evening.

The Anik F2 satellite was carried into orbit aboard Ariane flight 163 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:44 p.m. Saturday night local time (00:44 GMT Sunday). The launch was declared successful by Arianespace in a subsequent statement.

Anik F2 will be operated by Bell Canada Enterprises Inc.'s Telesat subsidiary and offer two-way satellite broadband Internet service and other broadcasting and telecommunication services, according to a Telesat statement.

It carries a payload of 38 Ka-band transponders, 32 Ku-band transponders and 24 C-band transponders and will operate from a position at 111 degrees West. Its estimated commercial lifetime is 15 years.

Now in orbit, it will be tested over the coming months and begin commercial service later this year, said Telesat.

Launch of the satellite had originally been scheduled for the evening of July 12 however it was postponed after a data anomaly was detected during countdown. Rescheduled for the evening of July 15, the launch was again delayed 16 minutes before the scheduled lift-off time because of bad weather. A further anomaly caused a launch on July 16 to be scrubbed pushing back plans one day to July 17, at which time a successful launch took place.