Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Following a handful of troubling valve issues that pushed a launch back for a week, an Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:04 p.m. EST on Thursday night, carrying a communications satellite for Viasat.
The 6-ton Viasat 3 satellite will be deployed from the Atlas rocket about 3 1/2 hours after launch, and eventually reach geostationary orbit 230,000 miles above Earth. The system was designed to provide Internet service to major air carriers, community Internet to parts of Latin America and service to some government agencies.
The Atlas 5 is 190 feet tall and equipped with five solid rocket boosters that produced 2.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The craft jettisoned the fuel boosters less than 2 minutes into the flight. and deployed the payload fairings about 90 seconds later.
A minute and half following launch, the craft was less than half its weight and traveling 5,000 mph., Atlas mission control commentator Daniel Brunson said during a live audio feed of the launch.
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