Spaceway F1

Spaceway F1 is part of DirecTV’s constellation of direct broadcast satellites. The satellite was launched via a Zenit 3SL rocket from Sea Launch’s Odyssey equatorial platform on April 26, 2005. Its operational position is in geosynchronous orbit 35800 km above the equator at 103.0 degrees west longitude. SPACEWAY-1 is a Boeing 702-model satellite with a 12-year life expectancy. It provides high definition television to DirecTV customers with its Ka-band communications payload. DirecTV is not expected to make use of the broadband capabilities on SPACEWAY-1 even though it was originally built by Boeing for this purpose.

SPACEWAY-1 was the heaviest commercial communications satellite (13,400-lb or 6,080-kg) ever put into orbit until iPSTAR-1 (6,775 kg) was launched by Arianespace on August 11, 2005.

DirecTV-10 is co-located with SPACEWAY-1 in order to use the 500 MHz of unused spectrum for HDTV broadcasting. This spectrum was originally intended for the broadband internet capabilities of the two SPACEWAY satellites which were disabled by Hughes at the request of DirecTV.