MUOS-3 launched after swap delay
The US Navy has launched the third of five Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellites on 20 January after a delay due to a soldering problem.
In cooperation with manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the MUOS-3 satellite will form part of a constellation that will now become fully operational in 2017 and provide the backbone of a new tactical communications system based on commercial 3G communications with text and voice recognition.
MUOS-3 is actually the fourth satellite built. Soldering problems found during thermal vacuum testing on the third satellite prevented it from being completed on time so it was swapped
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