A direct television satellite for Dish Network, a subsidiary of EchoStar, is set to head into geostationary Earth orbit on Monday night aboard a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral.
The satellite, EchoStar 25, will initially fly to a geosynchronous transfer orbit before maneuvering to its operation position at 110 degrees West above the equator.
Liftoff of the 70-meter-tall launch vehicle from Space Launch Complex 40 is scheduled for 11:19 p.m. EDT (0319 UTC), five minutes into the opening of a 149-minute window. The rocket will fly due east upon leaving Florida’s Space Coast.
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 90 percent chance for favorable weather during the launch window, citing a small chance for interference from cumulus clouds.
SpaceX will launch the mission with Falcon 9 first stage B1085. This will be its 14th flight after previously flying missions, including NASA’s Crew-9, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, and Fram2.
A little more than 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1085 will target a landing on the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. If successful, this will be the 146th touchdown on this vessel and the 583rd booster landing to date for SpaceX.
The EchoStar 25 satellite is expected to deploy from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket nearly 33 minutes after liftoff.
On March 20, 2023, EchoStar entered into a contract with Lanteris Space LLC (formerly Maxar Space Systems, now a subsidiary of Intuitive Machines) to build the EchoStar 25 satellite. A launch contract with SpaceX was established in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The satellite is built on Lanteris’ 1300 Series satellite bus, the basis for spacecraft, like NASA’s Psyche probe and Sirius XM’s SXM-10. Dish will use it as a direct broadcast satellite.
EchoStar-25 will operate in the 12.2-12.7 GHz for space-to-Earth communications and 17.3-17.8 GHz for Earth-to-space, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
This will be the most recent EchoStar satellite to be operated by its subsidiary, Dish, since EchoStar 23, which launched in March 2017. In May 2025, the company ordered the construction of EchoStar-26 from Lanteris, which is expected to launch in 2028.
Check it out! The EchoStar XXV satellite has arrived in Florida ahead of its upcoming launch. This satellite represents the latest collaboration between @EchoStar @dish, and Lanteris Space Systems, an Intuitive Machines Company, in a partnership that spans nearly three decades. pic.twitter.com/0bn0rPEBlV
— Lanteris Space, an Intuitive Machines Company (@LanterisSpace) February 25, 2026
In September 2025, EchoStar announced it was selling spectrum licenses to SpaceX that it had planned to use for its own direct to mobile service. The $17 billion sale, split evenly between cash and SpaceX stock is awaiting regulatory approval.
“We are disappointed that we were not able to continue with something we built over 17 years,” EchoStar’s CEO Charles Ergen said. “I think that we are also pleased that we have made our bet, and that is with SpaceX and Starlink
The sale will help advance SpaceX’s Direct to Cell Starlink service, recently rebranded to Starlink Mobile.
“We see them as the most viable company to do that, and with their tremendous technology and launch capabilities, they are well-positioned to certainly be a leader in that. And as we publicly discussed, we already have an agreement with them to provide that to our customers,” Ergen said.
