Feb 26 1982
From The Space Library
NASA launched Westar 4, first of a series of second-generation 24-transponder domestic commercial communications satellites built by Space Communications Company for Western Union, from ESMC on a Delta into a suborbital trajectory. An apogee kick motor would put it into orbit at 99°W, 19,300 nautical miles over the equator to relay voice, data, video, and facsimile communications to an area covering the United States from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands.
Westar 4, with a design life of 10 years would join three other Western Union communications satellites: Westar 1 and Westar 2, launched in 1974, and Westar 3 launched in 1979. It was twice their size and had four times their capacity. (NASA Release 82-17; NASA MOR 0-492-203-82-06 [prelaunch] Feb 25/82, [postlaunch] May 13/82)
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