Two Satellites Boosted From French Guiana Late Thursday

Arianespace successfully carried out the 54th Ariane 5 launch in a row on Thursday, orbiting two telecommunications satellites. Boosted into orbit were Amazonas-3 for Spanish operator Hispasat, and Azerspace/Africasat-1a for the Azerbaijani operator Azercosmos 0JSC and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies.

Arianespace said in a news release that the successful mission, the 54th in a row for the European launcher, once again proves the reliability and availability of the Ariane 5 launch system. It also confirms that Arianespace continues to set the standard for independent access to space for all operators, including national and international space agencies, private industry and governments. The 68th launch of Ariane 5 set a new record for weight injected into geostationary transfer orbit: the launcher on this mission carrying two satellites.

This was the first Ariane 5 launch in 2013. Its success once again illustrated the operational capability of this launcher, the only one now on the market capable of simultaneously launching two payloads.

The mission was carried out by an Ariane 5 ECA launcher from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff was on Thursdayat 1836 local time in Kourou.

Amazonas-3 was built by Space Systems/Loral using the SSL 1300 platform. It has 33 Ku-band transponders, 19 C-band transponders, and 9 Ka-band spot beams. This high-power satellite provides a wide range of telecommunications and broadband connectivity services in Europe, the Americas and North Africa. It offers a design life of 15 years. It is the 43rd satellite built by Space Systems/Loral to be launched by Arianespace.

The Azerspace/Africasat-1a satellite was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation using a Star-2 platform. The satellite is equipped with 24 C-band transponders and 12 Ku-band transponders. It will provide a wide range of telecommunications services for Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is the 24th satellite built by Orbital Sciences Corporation to be launched by Arianespace.

(Image provided by Arianespace)

FMI: www.arianespace.com