Go For Launch! (updated)

This week was a week of luck, from the luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day down to a few lucky people who still have their basketball brackets in place.

One more company is crossing its fingers and wishing for luck this week and that company is DISH Network. DISH Network will be launching their newest satellite on Saturday, that satellite is named Echostar 14.

The Echostar 14 satellite will be used in the 119 degree orbital location and will allow DISH Network to offer more locals to customers including HD locals.

Echostar 14 will be lifting off aboard a Proton Rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The weight of the spacecraft at liftoff is a amazing 1,554,000 pounds.

The Echostar 14 satellite was manufacturered by Space Systems Loral and is designed to serve a life of 15 years.

Upon successful launch of Echostar 14, it is expected that the satellite will be put in use in mid to late May.

This launch is one of two launches scheduled for this year for DISH Network.

The other launch will be Echostar 15 which will be going to the 61.5 West longitude orbital location and will be replacing the aging Echostar 3 satellite which was supposed to be replaced back in 2008 by AMC-14. The AMC-14 satellite failed to reach proper orbit after one of its upper stage motors malfunctioned. ECHOSTAR 15 is slated to launch in the third quarter of 2010.

If you want to watch Saturdays launch it will be broadcast live on DISH Network channel 101 at 2PM EST. The launch will also be broadcast on the web at http://www.ilslaunch.com. The satellite is expected to launch at 2:27 PM.

GO ECHOSTAR 14!

DIRECTV 12 Update

Speaking of satellite launches some people have been wonder what happened to the DIRECTV 12 satellite which launched back on December 29th.

The satellite has gone through extensive testing and is now starting to move to its permanent location of 102.8 degrees West Longitude. It is expected that the satellite will reach its new home in mid April.

I am being told by my contacts at DIRECTV that DIRECTV customers could see some new high definition channels broadcasting from the new satellite by the end of April. It is expected that with the new satellite DIRECTV will be able to add up to 70 new high definition channels to its lineup.

DIRECTV has just announced a premium channel shuffle which appears the first new HD channels will be additional premium services in HD.

Update: Just minutes after I submitted this edition, I received word that DIRECTV obtained a STA from the FCC to keep DIRECTV 12 at the 76 degree location for addition testing for up to 30 more days. No word on that this does to the new HD timetable I originally posted above.