Spaceway F1

Spaceway F1[1] (Spaceway 1) was a part of AT&T’s constellation of direct broadcast satellites. The satellite was launched via a Zenit 3SL rocket from Sea Launch’s Odyssey equatorial platform on April 26, 2005. Its operational position was in geosynchronous orbit 35,800 kilometres (22,200 mi) above the equator at 103.0 degrees west longitude. SPACEWAY-1 was a Boeing 702-model satellite with a 12-year life expectancy. It provided high definition television to DirecTV customers with its K_a-band communications payload. DirecTV did not make use of the broadband capabilities on SPACEWAY-1 even though it was originally built by Boeing for this purpose.

SPACEWAY-1 was the heaviest commercial communications satellite (13,400-lb or 6,080-kg) ever put into orbit[2] until iPSTAR-1 (6,775 kg) was launched by Arianespace on August 11, 2005.

T10 was co-located with SPACEWAY-1 in order to use the 500 MHz of unused spectrum for HDTV broadcasting. This spectrum was originally intended for the broadband internet capabilities of the two SPACEWAY satellites which were disabled by Hughes at the request of DirecTV.

During its last years, its main purpose was to serve as a backup satellite.

Spaceway F1 suffered thermal damage to its battery in December 2019, prompting AT&T to request the spacecraft be decommissioned before February 25, 2020, to prevent the risk of the spacecraft exploding.[3]

As the damages to the satellite's batteries were significant and irreversible, in February 2020, the Spaceway 1 satellite was moved into a graveyard orbit above the geostationary orbit and decommissioned.[4]