Inmarsat launches second Global Xpress satellite

The UK satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat has launched the second of its I5 series of spacecraft, the BBC reported.

The 7m-long, 6.1-tonne platform went into orbit on a Proton M rocket, despatched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

The I5s - there will be four in total - make up Inmarsat's next-generation constellation called Global Xpress.

And with an investment of £1bn ($1.5bn), they represent the single biggest commercial space project in Britain right now.

The I5-F2 was released into its super-synchronous transfer orbit at 04:02 GMT on Monday, following a mammoth 15-and-a-half-hour journey aboard the Proton and its Breeze upper-stage.

Currently, this orbit takes the satellite out to a distance of 65,000km from the Earth.

Over the coming days, the platform must use its own propulsion system to circularise this path and bring itself into a "stationary" position some 36,000km above the equator.

Engineers will then drift the I5-F2 to its operational station at 55 degrees West to serve customers in the Americas and Atlantic region.

"We couldn't be happier right now," said Ruy Pinto, the chief operations officer at Inmarsat.

"We have acquired the satellite successfully, we have checked all the sub-systems, and we have just completed the first big re-orientation manoeuvre.

"Our first orbit-raising burn will be conducted on Wednesday. We'll have seven in total and then we'll fully deploy all the solar panels," he told BBC News.