Boeing, who has provided advanced satellite systems to DIRECTV for more than 16 years, announced that DIRECTV 12 was shipped Nov. 25 from Boeing’s satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo to the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility in Kazakhstan.
Upon arrival, the satellite will undergo final preparations for a December launch aboard an International Launch Services Proton/Breeze M rocket.
DIRECTV 12 is the 11th satellite Boeing has built for DIRECTV. According to the company, the new satellite will increase DIRECTV’s high-definition capacity by 50 percent, and when combined with the DIRECTV 10 and 11 satellites that launched in 2007 and 2008, will enable DIRECTV to deliver 200 national and 1,500 local HDTV channels to “millions of U.S. households”.
DIRECTV 12’s national and spot-beam Ka-band payloads are designed to receive and transmit programming throughout the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii.
"The successful launch and deployment of DIRECTV 12 will bring the best in digital television programming to DIRECTV’s more than 18.4 million customers across the United States," assured Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems.
Forbes.com has recently named the DIRECTV iPhone app one of the Best Branded Mobile Applications of 2009.
A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest manufacturer of military aircraft.
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