Boeing and The DirecTV Group Inc. said the Spaceway F1 satellite arrived at Sea Launch home port in Long Beach, CA, where it will undergo final preparations for a late April launch aboard a Zenit-3SL rocket.

The satellite is based on Boeing’s 702 model and is the first of two satellites to be launched for DirecTV this year. The Ka-band spacecraft includes a flexible payload with a fully steerable downlink antenna that can be reconfigured on orbit to address market conditions.

Spaceway F1 is one of four Boeing-built satellites that DirecTV has scheduled to launch throughout the next three years as part of a planned expansion of its direct-to-home satellite television service. Once completed, the expansion will enable DirecTV to deliver more than 1,500 local and national high definition television channels and other advanced programming services to its subscribers by 2007.