Viasat-3 "Americas" just launched successfully from Vandenberg. Is that the one that will enable internet on the Hawaiian routes? There's another one called "APAC" for the Asia-Pacific region but that one just canceled their contract with Arianespace and is up for bids from other launchers (probably a year or more away?)

Side note, it's pretty crazy that they are able to cover 99% of the world's population with just three satellites. They must be big, beefy suckers. The Falcon Heavy (world's second most powerful rocket) had to launch in fully expendable mode just to get it up.

It launched from pad 39A at Kennedy. The SpaceX video on the payload said the Viasat-3s aren’t much bigger than a shoebox. There were 2 other, separate payloads on that one rocket as well.

Woops it was Kennedy, I was mixing up the announcement they took over one of ULA's launch complexes at Vandenberg.

The satellite is huge though, just looked it up and it's over 13,200 lbs. The other satellites are Arcturus (the shoe box at 48 lbs) and G-Space 1 (661 lbs).

Going direct to geostationary orbit is also part of the reason as the Heavy can launch 4x that amount to LEO.

I think the solar arrays are what's huge. The satellite is small. They said they reduced the size from 2 humans to about a shoe box. Just a guess though.

It also has some sort of massive halo looking extension array but I can't find more information about it. Either way I don't think calling a 13,000 lb satellite a shoebox is entirely accurate by Viasat. I'm sure one part of it is.

The satellite itself is about the size of a minivan. The solar panels span about 150 feet. It’s not a small thing by any stretch of the imagination. If the solar panels fail they have one of those things you plug into the wall to charge.

I think it was more to do with going direct to GEO stationary orbit as opposed to a GEO Transfer Orbit (GTO), than the weight of the payload, because 6,700kg (15K lbs) really isn't that heavy. Single F9 can do 18K to a GTO.