Heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket launches two satellites

By Laurent Marot

KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) – A heavy-lift Ariane-5
rocket put two telecommunications satellites into orbit after a
textbook launch from French Guiana late on Wednesday.

The rocket — capable of launching satellite payloads of up
to 10 metric tons (22,000 lb) — blasted-off from Europe’s
space base in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America at
8.46 p.m. (2346 GMT).

The launch, repeatedly postponed last week because of
technical problems, lit up the equatorial night sky and was
visible from the ground for over three minutes.

Twenty-seven minutes after launch, the rocket released into
a preliminary orbit the Spaceway-2 satellite for U.S.
direct-to-home television operator DIRECTV.

Spaceway-2 weighed 6.1 metric tons (13,400 lb) at launch
and will be used for high definition television throughout the
United States. It was built in California by Boeing Space
Systems.

Six minutes later, the rocket released Indonesia’s
Telkom-2, a 2 ton (4,400 lb) satellite for Jakarta-based PT
Telekomunikasi Indonesia.

Telkom will provide telephone, data and video transmissions
across southeast Asia and the Indian sub-continent. It was
built in the United States by an industrial team led by Orbital
Sciences Corp.

Because of its geography Indonesia is highly reliant on
telecommunications satellites.

“Indonesia is an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands
and 220 million inhabitants,” Garuda Sugardo, Telekomunikasi’s
president told Reuters after the launch.

“We cannot cover this territory with land lines or cable,”
he said.

HEAVY-LIFT ARIANE-5

Billed by the Arianespace rocket launch company as a cost
effective launcher for double satellite missions, the
heavy-lift is capable of launching payloads of up to 10 tons.
This adds over 3 tons of launch capacity to the current
‘Generic’ Ariane-5 in service since the mid-1990s.

A first attempt to launch the heavy-lift failed in 2002 but
it flew earlier this year during a second demonstration flight.

Arianespace president Jean-Yves Le Gall said the heavy-lift
Ariane-5 had “fully qualified” and could be used five or six
times in 2006.

French Space Agency (CNES) officials said the priority for
Europe’s space program was now the production of 30 Ariane-5
rockets already ordered and planning for Ariane-5′s successor
slated for 2020.

They said plans to increase Ariane-5′s launch capacity to
12 tons had been abandoned.