Morelos I Morelos I was Mexico's first communications satellite. It was built and put into orbit under a contract from the
Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT), the federal ministry responsible for the nation's communications systems.
Morelos I, a
Hughes Aircraft Corporation HS-376, was launched by the U.S.
Space Shuttle Discovery (mission
STS-51-G) on 17 June 1985 and entered
geostationary orbit at 113° W on 17 December 1985.
Morelos II Morelos II was launched in November 1985 and remained in service until July 1998. Built by the Hughes Aircraft Corporation for the SCT, it was launched by the Space Shuttle
Atlantis on 27 November 1985; the mission,
STS-61-B, included
Mexican-born astronaut
Rodolfo Neri Vela as a payload specialist in its crew.
Morelos II held a geostationary orbit at 116.8° W.
Morelos III Morelos III (originally
MEXSAT 2) was launched on 2 October 2015 at 10:28 UTC on
Atlas V 421 AV-059 and the 100th launch by the
United Launch Alliance. The spacecraft is designed to provide L-band services to mobile 3G+ users and armed forces via a deployable 22m
Herschelian antenna dish with RF transceivers. It also has a 2m Ku-band dish of fixed geometry with a much simpler deployment sequence. The spacecraft is a
Boeing 702HP GeoMobile spacecraft bus equipped with an RD-4 main engine for completing its ascent to geostationary orbit at 113° W from an ascent orbit of 4750 by 35800km inclined at 27° following the now-typical long duration two-burn profile of the
Atlas V. It was originally intended to serve with the similar MEXSAT-1
Centenario spacecraft (which would have been at 116° W) lost during the 3rd stage failure of the 406th
Proton, a launch vehicle of Proton-M/Briz-M configuration. ==Gallery==