On this day in space: Feb. 25, 1982: Western Union launches Westar 4 communications satellite

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On Feb. 25, 1982, the Western Union company launched a communication satellite called Westar 4.

On Feb. 25, 1982, the Western Union company launched a communication satellite called Westar 4. Western Union was the first American telecommunications company to have a fleet of its own satellites.

An artist's illustration of Western Union's massive Westar 4 communications satellite in orbit. It launched on Feb. 25, 1982.

An artist's illustration of Western Union's massive Westar 4 communications satellite in orbit. It launched on Feb. 25, 1982. (Image credit: Boeing)

It lifted off from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 3910 rocket at 7:04 p.m. Eastern Time and entered a geostationary orbit.

For 10 years the satellite relayed voice, data, video and fax communications before it was replaced. While it is no longer operational, it is still orbiting the Earth today.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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