On Wednesday, July 16th at 12:21am CDT a Zenit-3SL rocket launched via the ocean based Odyssey launch platform. The Zenit-3SL rocket carried EchoStar XI into space while the Block DM-SL upper stage inserted it into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The final location for EchoStar XI will be 110 degrees West Longitude.

EchoStar XI will be used for DISH Networks to allow for more HD programming and additional redundancy to their current network operations.