Arianespace successfully launched the 100th Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou base in French Guiana.
The European heavy launcher Ariane 5, with a mass of 780 tonnes on take-off, has placed two telecommunications satellites in orbit, Horizons 3e for Intelsat and its partner SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation and Azerspace-2 / Intelsat 38 for Azercosmos and Intelsat, Arianespace announced in a statement.
100 + 300 = #Arianespace and #Ariane5’s history-making success. Read the Mission Update: https://t.co/P5BrlMnwLl #VA243 pic.twitter.com/5CZHcqxJpr
— Arianespace (@Arianespace) 26 September 2018
The rocket was launched for the 100th time from Guyanese soil on Tuesday at 7.38pm local (0:38am Wednesday in Paris) at the end of the window possible shooting from the space center of Kourou, AFP found. It rose vertically for about 13 seconds crossing the Guyanese night before moving east.
Orbiting two satellites
The rocket was originally scheduled to leave at 18:53 local (23:53 Tuesday in Paris) but a red signal had interrupted the timeline 1 minute and 34 seconds before the end of the count. The chronology had then resumed at H minus 7 minutes at 19:31 local (0 h 31 Wednesday in Paris), the shooting window being 45 minutes.
Just over 28 minutes after take-off, the rocket separated from Horizons 3e satellite, which will complete Intelsat’s network and enable the delivery of next-generation broadband services in the Asia-Pacific region as well as more coverage. off the Pacific Ocean.
The Azerspace-2 / Intelsat 38 satellite was orbited 42 minutes after Ariane took off.
This multi-function satellite, according to Arianespace, is intended to meet the growing demand for direct broadcast television (DTH) and telecommunications services for governments and private customers in Europe, Central and South Asia, the Middle East and the Middle East. in sub-Saharan Africa.
In spite of the bitter failure of the inaugural flight at the end of 2002, out of 100 launches of Ariane 5 version ECA, the most powerful, 95 are considered as successes.
