Arianespace's Ariane 5 flight with the Skynet 5D and Mexsat Bicentenario satellite passengers today wrapped up another busy year of company launch activity, with its successes highlighted by the theme of "10."
The maturity of Arianespace's Soyuz launch system at French Guiana was demonstrated once again by tonight's successful orbiting of the Pleiades 1B satellite from the Spaceport.
This evening, an Ariane 5 launcher lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on its mission to place two telecommunications satellites, Eutelsat-21B and Star One-C3, into their planned transfer orbits.
12 October 2012: Soyuz lifts off for the third time from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on its mission to place the second pair of Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites into orbit.
Plenary Event 3 at the 2012 International Astronautical Congress in Naples focus was on commercial space transportation initiatives.The Plenary Event provided "a snapshot of the political, economic, and technical landscapes to best determine if, when and how much humankind could be ready to embark on futuristic scenarios based on massive space commercialisation."
The fifth Ariane 5 mission of 2012 delivered a pair of telecommunications spacecraft to geostationary transfer orbit today, marking the 65th launch to date for Arianespace's heavy-lift workhorse.
Test deployments of the antenna reflectors on India's GSAT-10 telecommunications satellite have been performed as part of pre-flight preparations for this payload, which is one of two spacecraft on Arianespace's next Ariane 5 mission from the Spaceport in French Guiana.
Tonight marked the 50th successful Ariane flight in a row: an Ariane 5 was launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana to perform a dual deployment of two telecommunications satellites, Intelsat 20 and Hylas-2, into their planned transfer orbits.
Consolidating a relationship now entering into its 30th year, Eutelsat Communications and Arianespace today announced the conclusion of a new launch services contract for a future Eutelsat satellite.
In the early evening at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana an Ariane 5 successfully launched two telecommunication satellites for Japan and Vietnam. It was the 48th consecutive success launch for the Ariane 5, the 300th and 301st satellites launched by Arianespace from French Guiana, and the 100th and 101st commercial satellites produced by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.
