APEX Insight: The successful launch of Inmarsat’s third satellite in its Global Xpress program will provide coverage over the Pacific Ocean region, completing its mission to become the first high-speed mobile broadband service by a single operator to deliver connectivity worldwide.

All eyes were on the Proton-M rocket that carried the third satellite of Inmarsat’s Global Xpress program into orbit today. The event took place at the Russian Space Agency’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but the world was invited to witness the lift-off via a live stream hosted on YouTube.

The I-5 F3, a satellite that completes Inmarsat’s mission to provide seamless Ka-band connectivity worldwide, should’ve launched in May, but was postponed due to the explosion of the very same rocket that contained a different satellite.

Four months later, after a thorough investigation into the incident, a quick recovery and the successful launch of earlier today, the engineers and technicians behind Global Xpress can finally let out a sigh of relief as the $1.6-billion investment that has been five years in the making – enduring multiple setbacks caused by rocket failures and delaying the $500-million revenue the program is expected to bring in over the next five years – is finally up and running.

“The completion of the Global Xpress constellation will be a significant milestone for our organization and is fundamental to the delivery of a new era in mobile satellite communications, which will change the future for us all,” says Rupert Pearce, CEO, Inmarsat.

With the three Ka-band satellites in place, Inmarsat will be able to deliver reliable high-speed throughput in the most far-flung places on the ground and in the skies. With maximum speeds of 50Mbps on the downlink and 5Mbps on the uplink, Global Xpress is 100 times faster than the current L-Band SwiftBroadband service, enabling seamless connectivity on aircraft, even as passengers cross different time zones. It also boosts Internet speeds for browsing, real-time TV, TV-on-demand, expanding the possibilities for in-flight entertainment.

But connectivity on aircraft could not be possible without partners. “There are hundreds of people inside Inmarsat and outside Inmarsat working to turn this capability into a service and deliver truly cutting-edge services, solutions – value to the customers we want to serve,” says Pearce.

To deliver its super fast broadband communications, Inmarsat has teamed with terminal manufacturers Honeywell, Kymeta, ARINC Direct (part of Rockwell Collins), Gogo and OnAir, among others, and is working with aircraft manufacturers to provide line-fit and retrofit options.

While connectivity is expected to arrive on commercial aircraft as early as this year, Inmarsat will be launching one more satellite which will act as a spare. The fourth satellite, I-5 F4, currently in production, is also being created by Boeing Satellite Systems International, which also manufactured the other I-5 satellites, and will be launched by Tesla founder, Elon Musk’s SpaceX next year. If the spare satellite is not needed, Inmarsat says it will simply increase capacity and enhance network coverage.

I-5 F1, the first of the Global Xpress satellites, was launched in December 2013, providing coverage to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The second, I-5 F2, was launched in February and provided coverage over the Americas and Atlantic Ocean region.